anything that's dead shall be regrown
by blueinkedbones
Summary: "You can trust us," Stiles says. "Yeah?" Derek says skeptically. "Why would I do that?" "Wow, you really haven't changed a bit," Stiles says. / de-aged derek. spoilers for all episodes.
1. Chapter 1

"Get off me!"

Derek stumbles forward, barely rights himself before seeing one guy's hands come out like he's trying to catch him. He trips back, nearly hits the guy who'd had him by one arm, who reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder.

"I said get off!"

The group backs up as one, still gathered around Derek in an uneven circle.

"What do you want?" Derek asks. "If—if this is some kind of treaty thing, my alpha—" He takes in the sudden dropped gazes of most of the circle. "What?"

"Derek," the guy with the hands says. He's still got his hands out, kind of reaching, kind of catching, kind of dropping to his sides. His voice is calm, but his eyes are too bright to sell it, and his heartbeat is out of control. "Are you—Do you know who we are?"

Derek swallows, thinks. If this is a treaty thing, another pack thing, why would they care about him? He's not even the alpha-in-training, he's nothing. Mom doesn't even bother explaining most werewolf politics to him. He knows most of it from Laura, Peter, from passing alphas who used to think it was cute to tell the youngest beta their complicated histories and have it repeated back to them around still-awkward fangs. Now that's Cora, and not recently, either—She says she's too big to play kid games.

"No," Derek decides. "Should I?"

The group exchanges glances again. Derek wishes they'd stop.

"Derek—" the hands guy starts again.

"Tell me who you are," Derek says. He's been working on not sounding like the little kid everyone still seems to think he is. Everyone except—

"My name's Stiles," hands guy says, and finally notices his outstretched hands. "Stilinski," he adds, before Derek can point out that that doesn't sound like a name at all. "This is, uh, Malia, Lydia, Kira—" He indicates the three supermodels around him. "The guy who got you out of there is Scott, the girl's Braeden. I don't really know what her deal is yet, but you can trust the rest of us." He considers. "Maybe not Malia. She's working on it. But, you know, the rest of us."

"Yeah?" Derek says skeptically. "Why would I do that?"

"Wow, you really haven't changed a bit," Stiles says, which doesn't make a lot of sense. "Look, this is gonna sound kind of hard to believe, but—you know us. I mean, older you knows us. Or knew us, I guess."

That doesn't make any sense at all.

"Oh, for god's sake," the redhead Stiles called Lydia says, stepping forward. "You've been de-aged. You're supposed to be—" She stops. "How old is he supposed to be, Stiles?"

"I don't know, mid-twenties?" Stiles guesses. "He was in high school when we were like ten. You do the math."

"I thought you knew me," Derek says.

"Yeah, knew _you_," Stiles says. "The sarcasm, the general _Shut up, Stiles_ atmosphere that just radiates off you naturally, the glowy blue eyes—"

Derek tenses. So that's what this is about.

"Whatever you think I did—"

"Whoa, no, wait." Stiles holds up his hands again, this time in a Stop position. "You don't have to explain that. Like I said, we know you."

Derek stares at Stiles. His heartbeat doesn't falter.

"You all know what happened?" Derek asks. He sounds so much like a kid he wants to cringe. It's the way his voice goes up on the ends of questions, he thinks. Maybe he just needs to stop doing that.

"More or less just me, actually," Stiles says. "Peter filled me in."

Derek studies his face. "You know Peter?" Ugh. "I mean. You know _Peter_," he repeats doubtfully. Better.

"Unfortunately, yes," Stiles says, before realizing how rude that sounds. "Uh, sorry."

"It's okay," Derek says. If Stiles heard what happened from Peter, and he doesn't trust him—Derek relaxes minutely. "So if I'm twenty-something, how do you know me? I don't hang around with ten year olds."

"About that," Stiles says, and his voice gets quiet again, soft, like he's about to say something horrible and he's sorry for it. "Maybe you should sit down."

"Just tell me," Derek says.

"There was this fire," Stiles says. "When you were—actually, when you were just a little older than you are now. What's the last thing you remember?"

"This conversation," Derek says. Stiles' lips crack into a momentary grin before his whole face goes funeral-solemn again.

"Before that," Stiles says.

"Getting dragged out here by them," Derek says, pointing to the guy and girl behind him. They've moved a little, making space for him on the edge of the circle rather than closing him in. It's a definite improvement.

"Scott and Braeden," Stiles says helpfully. "Scott's a werewolf too, by the way—"

"_Obviously_," Derek says, and god, that makes him sound like a kid too. "No kidding," he says. "An alpha."

Scott's the youngest alpha Derek has ever seen, but his insides still curdle, suddenly, realizing how he'd snapped at him. He could be in so much trouble right now.

"And Malia's a werecoyote, Lydia's a banshee, Kira's a kitsune—"

"I can see her aura," Derek says, in case Stiles thinks he's some kind of idiot. "What are you?"

"Me? I'm nothing. Token human," Stiles says.

"No you're not," Derek says. Stiles isn't any supernatural creature Derek can identify, but there's no way he's just ordinary. There's something about him.

Stiles shrugs. "Natural charisma? And oh, yeah, I was possessed by a nogitsune recently. But I'm back in the saddle and good as ever, Original Recipe Stiles. Tried and true."

Derek raises an eyebrow.

"Right," Stiles says, scratching at his eye. "The point is—"

"We should get going," Scott interrupts.

"Save the long conversations for a place that doesn't have a kidnappy habit, got it," Stiles agrees.

"Where are we," Derek says, and traps a small triumphant grin between his teeth.

"A long, long way from home, Toto," Stiles says.

"Dog jokes, really," Derek says, unimpressed.

"Literally haven't changed a bit," Stiles repeats.

* * *

The rescue car is a crappy old blue Jeep Stiles looks at like he built it with his bare hands. Maybe he did. Even underneath all those layers it's obvious his shoulders are bigger than Derek's, and Derek's been working out nonstop since—Just nonstop. It makes Derek try to picture what he's supposed to look like, wonder if any of it ever really made a difference. Just wait, it'll turn out Stiles only recognized him so quickly because he's still got the same stupid teeth and ears and weak little—Ugh. Derek makes a face, reaches for the radio.

Stiles' hand actually catches his like he's gonna bat it away, but he reconsiders.

"What," Derek says.

"What? Nothing," Stiles says, and pulls his hand back. "Just—Don't break it."

Derek doesn't recognize a single song the whole way home.

* * *

Beacon Hills looks wrong, it's obvious. There are way more boarded-up storefronts and dark alleys than there should be, way less traffic on the roads. Derek shivers. It's weird seeing home turned into this, like the opening of a zombie movie.

"What happened?" he asks, completely forgetting about his new ban of question marks.

Stiles looks at him, eyes guarded. "What do you mean?"

"It's not supposed to look like this," Derek says. There's a new, sick feeling in his chest. "Did we lose territory?"

Stiles pulls over.

"Really?" Malia groans. "We're so close."

"Just gimme a minute, okay?" Stiles' hands close over her wrist. "Don't eat any babies, you've got this."

So he's her anchor. That's... whatever.

"There was a fire," Stiles says carefully, when Malia's gone into the 7-11, after shooting one long last look at Derek like she's already decided he's more trouble than he's worth. "It changed a lot of things."

Derek frowns. "But it's been years, right? Why haven't they fixed it?"

"We lost people," Stiles says, and Derek wants to laugh, suddenly, because he feels like this really is a zombie movie, his character coming home to the little ragtag group of survivors, getting briefed by the leader on the carnage.

"My people?" Derek asks, after a horrible thought cuts off the instinct completely. "My alpha wouldn't—Did we get displaced or something?" It seems impossible, even now. Mom would never—

Stiles blinks sharply. "It was hunters," he says. "The fire, I mean. Have you ever heard of the Argents?"

"Of course," Derek says, and goggles at him. "Wait, on_ purpose_?"

Stiles' mouth twists into something like an sharp smirk. "Yeah, you could say that," he says. Then he shakes his head, clarifies, "They're not all bad. We just lost the best of them, though."

Panic seizes Derek's lungs, squeezes hard. "Kate?"

The look on Stiles' face is hard to read, but laced with unmistakable pity. He shakes his head.

"Her name was Allison," Stiles says, and Derek makes an effort to keep breathing. "Kate was her aunt."

"'Was,'" Derek says, alarmed again.

"Oh, Kate's fine," Stiles says. There's something wrong with his voice, something new and dark and angry. "How she's so fine, that's what I'd like to know." He shakes his head again, rubs his eyes. "Cora's okay," he says. "Peter's fine. Creepy, but—that doesn't seem new."

"And Laura," Derek says, then, "Right?"

"I'm sorry," Stiles says. His heartbeat is clear, steady, but he looks miserable.

"What," Derek says, struggling not to freak out. "She's—hurt?"

Shit, Stiles is _tearing up_.

"No," Derek says, pulling back. His seat belt is cutting into his chest, making breathing impossible. He gets it off with fingers that keep trying to turn into claws. He only barely stops them. "No, she—What _happened_? And don't just say 'a fire!'"

"No, she wasn't home then," Stiles says. "You were both at school. Laura actually—I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that!" Derek snaps. "Just tell me what happened!"

"Peter," Stiles says. "He was—hurt, after the fire, he thought being an alpha would help him heal faster."

"Laura's not an alpha," Derek says sharply.

Stiles swipes at his eyes. "She was."

"But you can't be an alpha unless—" Derek's head spins.

"I'm," Stiles says, and shuts his mouth tight.

"No," Derek says. This is crazy. All of this is crazy. "You're lying to me, you're—"

"I wish I was," Stiles says hoarsely. "I swear to god, Derek."

"So," Derek says, and chokes on a lump in his throat. "So she's—And my mom—"

"But you're okay," Stiles says. "You'll be okay. You have—Scott's pack, my pack, that's your pack."

"No it isn't," Derek says.

"Well, you're—pack adjacent," Stiles says. "It doesn't matter. You have us."

Derek stares at him. "You really don't know anything about me at all," he says.

"I'm not saying it won't be hard, but—"

"_Hard_?" Derek wants to punch him. "My whole pack—" His voice shakes, and he doesn't even care. "My _real_ pack, my _family_—"

"I know," Stiles says, sounding awful with it. "I know, I didn't mean—" He swipes at his eyes again. "Derek, I'm so—"

"_Shut up_!" Derek roars.

Malia tears into the car, grabs Derek's shoulder, and roars back. Hers is better. Derek hasn't had a lot of practice.

He lowers his head, stares down at his hands until his vision blurs.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Stiles is saying, putting his hands all over Malia, calming her down.

Derek wants to throw up.

"Hey," Stiles says, low, his fingers stroking all down Malia's back while she buries her face in his neck. "I know you don't wanna hear this right now, but I'm not talking about replacing anything, I know no one can do that. My—" He swallows hard. "My mom passed away when I was ten. It's been seven years and I still—" He scratches the shadow under his eye with his free hand. "Y'know, I still wake up sometimes trying to find her. Like she's just in the kitchen when I'm in the hall, like we just keep missing each other."

"What do you do?" Derek asks. His voice is faraway, alien, but he needs to know.

"Sometimes I just pretend it's true," Stiles says. "Sometimes I start researching something, try to distract myself. There's no one good answer." His jaw works silently for a few seconds. "But Scott, I don't know what I'd do without Scott. It's not about filling a void," he says. "It's about not locking the whole world out because you're so scared of losing someone like that again that you don't ever want to take the risk."

"Why would hunters hurt us?" Derek bursts out, after a while. "There's a code, we have a treaty, we didn't do any—"

His stomach drops.

"Was it me?" Derek asks. "Was it because of me?"

"What?" Stiles says. "Of course not, why would you—"

But it's not exactly the truth.

"What happened with—with Paige," Derek says. "I have blue eyes, everyone knows that means—"

"No," Stiles says, certain this time. "No, none of that is your fault. None of this."

"I killed her," Derek says. His throat keeps trying to close up, his eyes are burning. "I watched her die, I—"

"Peter tricked you," Stiles says. "All that bullshit with the alpha pack, that was a setup. All you did was what she asked you to do. What she begged you to do."

"I was an idiot," Derek snaps. "Maybe I trusted a creep, but it's still my fault—"

"No, it isn't," Stiles says firmly.

"That's what happened, though," Derek says. Somehow, he already knows he's right. "I killed someone, and hunters came after us."

"Correlation isn't causation," Stiles says. "I was a exhausting, hyperactive brat and then my mom died, that doesn't mean—"

"That's not the same—"

"Scott had asthma and his piece of crap father left, but his piece of crap father would've left anyway, because he's a piece of crap."

"That's not—"

"Lydia's crazy smart and her parents divorced—"

"_I killed someone!_"

"Yeah," Stiles says. "You did. But someone else killed your family. And you couldn't have stopped her."

"What am I supposed to do?" Derek says shakily. "What do I even do? Your Derek, what does he—"

"Right now things are a little..." Stiles makes a complicated gesture with his free hand. "I'm guessing you want to be your actual age again, so I was thinking Deaton—"

"Deaton," Derek says. "The emissary?"

"Y—yeah," Stiles says. "You know him?"

"Know _of _him," Derek says. "My al—My mother never really introduced us or anything, but I know she trust—trusted him." His voice breaks. "Was she wrong?"

"I don't know," Stiles says honestly. "He's kind of... hard to read. But he's helped us a lot, and if anyone knows anything about de-aging, it's probably him."

"Okay," Derek says.

"Okay," Stiles says. "I'll just text Scott, tell him to meet us at the clinic."

"The clinic?"

"Oh, yeah," Stiles says, pocketing his phone and gently nudging a drowsy Malia off his shoulder and into the back seat. "Turns out being an emissary doesn't mean you get to quit your day job."


	2. Chapter 2

There's a kitten with a torn ear and a side full of bandages that Derek can't help staring at. Deaton follows his gaze and says, "Would you like to hold her?"

"I—Yeah," Derek says, and carefully shapes his hands around her fur. She's warm and her nose is very pink and she squirms at first but settles almost as soon as he deposits her in the folds of the shirt Stiles let him change into. He'd been right about Stiles' muscles. The shirt's mostly the right size but swims around Derek's shoulders. Over it he's got Dad's jacket—Stiles took him to his, older him's, apartment, he had a key and he knew where everything was. He didn't know the jacket was Dad's, but he knew where it would be, when Derek mentioned it, not really expecting an answer.

Older Derek's apartment smelled like him and a little bit of Stiles and even less of Scott and some other people, probably Scott's pack. Mostly it smelled lonely. Derek doesn't get that, why older him is lonely if he's got so many people. If he's got Stiles.

There was a picture of older him and Cora in his bedroom. Older Derek looks nothing like him, and Cora—She's supposed to be eleven, and instead she's Stiles' age. It made Derek dizzy.

The kitten twitches her nose, burrows under Dad's jacket to press herself closer against his chest. He dips his hand in to find her. She licks his fingers.

"What happened to her?" Derek asks, interrupting whatever really serious discussion Stiles and Deaton are having that he hasn't been paying attention to.

"It's hard to say," Deaton says, turning to Derek. "My guess is she got separated from her—"

Stiles makes an aborted noise, looking from Derek to Deaton very meaningfully, like Derek doesn't get his oh-so-subtle signals, like finding out she's alone too is what's gonna break him.

"So she's nobody's," Derek says, instead of pointing this out. "You just found her."

"That's right."

_Good_, Derek thinks, and tucks his jacket a little warmer around her.

* * *

He names her Laura.

* * *

Stiles and Scott are in trouble for road tripping to Mexico without telling their parents. They're grounded until they're sixty and banned from any more supernatural adventures forever and Stiles' father gets all the bacon he wants and Scott's mother is very, very—

"Mom," Scott says, and steps sideways, leaving his mother frowning at Derek's forehead for a second before she refocuses. "It's Derek."

"We had to go get him," Stiles says.

"And you didn't think we might want to help you with that?" Stiles' father asks, after a long pause where he stares at Derek like he's some kind of code to crack.

Stiles goes pink. "That… _may_ not have occurred to us," he allows.

"Well Christ, Stiles, what do you think—" Stiles' dad stops, shakes his head just the way Stiles does. "Are you alright?" he asks Derek.

Derek really doesn't know what to say to that.

Quietly, Stiles says, "I had to tell him about, you know—"

"Of course," Stiles' dad says, and steps a little closer to Derek, like he's trying to shield him from a still-fresh crime scene. "Those were some good people," he says. "They deserved a hell of a lot better. And your sister—" He rubs his eyes. "I'm sorry."

It's somehow worse when he says it. It sounds more real, more permanent. Derek looks down at his hands, watches them tremble. The world blurs again.

"Hey," Stiles says, and then his hand is on Derek's shoulder, contact heat seeping all down that side. He doesn't say anything else. There's nothing he could say, nothing that would matter. It's not a nightmare, it's not gonna be okay, it's just—this. Forever.

They stand like that for a long time.

* * *

"Where's Cora?" Derek asks, eventually. He almost doesn't want to see her. He doesn't know what he'd say, what he'd do. What she'd want from him, if she even wants to see him. He's supposed to be stronger than her, supposed to protect her, but she's older than him now and everything's all turned around.

"She's safe," Stiles says, which isn't an answer.

Derek can't stop shivering. He grits his teeth, says, "That's not an answer."

"I don't know," Stiles says. "But De—you said she was safe."

"That doesn't mean—" Panic shocks through him again, but it's sluggish when it hits. He's tired of this, of older Derek's life. He's just tired.

"Yeah, it does," Stiles says. "I trust you."

"You shouldn't," Derek says.

* * *

There's food. Stiles' dad cooked, which he never does. He grills, apparently, and cooks vicariously through the various fast food chains, which Stiles points out is cholesterol city, and his dad argues—Derek can't even hear them, really, anymore. He makes a feeble attempt at putting something on a fork. He holds the fork for a while, staring blankly at it, and puts it back down.

"You sure you're finished?" Stiles' dad asks when Derek stands up.

Derek feels a thousand years old. Maybe this has happened a thousand times already.

"I'm… yeah," he says.

"You should drink something, at least."

"Fine," Derek says, and drinks a couple sips of a hot chocolate Stiles' father hands him before gagging and running to the bathroom to be sick.

* * *

Stiles changes his sheets, takes the couch. "No, I want to," he says, when Derek protests vaguely.

The new sheets are too clean, like they're barely out of the packaging. The factory smell makes Derek's head hurt. He pulls the pillow out of its case, presses his face into it. It smells like Stiles, like Stiles' dad, like someone else Derek guesses was Stiles' mom.

He dreams about fires, his family on some giant grill, their house shriveling around them like heated plastic, trapping them inside.

He wakes up with his fangs out and blood in his mouth, blood on Stiles' pillow, blood still dripping from the already-healing claw marks across his chest, up and down his arms. There's still the slightest indent of a bite mark fading from Derek's wrist. He recognizes the shape of his own teeth.

There's blood gunking up Dad's leather jacket.

Derek wishes he'd just died in that fire.

* * *

He takes a molten hot shower, watches the water swirl pink. Redresses in Stiles' shirt, older Derek's jeans, Dad's jacket, which he'd tried to scrub clean in the bathroom sink. He'd let the water run till the sink was clean, flushed all the blood-gunked tissues, flushed again. There's still a tough stain of gritty dried blood left in the jacket lining, which won't come out for anything.

Derek doesn't care, doesn't care, doesn't care.

Nothing matters, not really.

* * *

Deaton's useless. Stiles dives into his own research wormhole, only coming up to check on an increasingly listless Derek, putting food in his hands, offering books, video games. Things older Derek likes, things that must've distracted him, like Stiles said. Right now Derek doubts anything could distract him, and it's stupid to try. It's not like he wants to be happy, anyway. Mom's never going to be happy ever again. Everyone can just fuck off if they think he's just gonna push that back somewhere, paste a big stiff smile on his face and watch some Pixar movie.

He dreams about fires, sirens, howls that echo forever and forever and forever. He wakes up sick and shivering all over. He stares up at the ceiling till it goes foggy, till he has to clamp a palm over his mouth to keep from howling with them.

* * *

He runs till his muscles are screaming for relief, keeps going. Wind whipping past him, all air sucking past him, leaving him breathless, but he doesn't stop until it feels like his muscles are tearing from the bone.

There's an exercise bar in older Derek's apartment. Derek saw it that first time with Stiles. It's important, suddenly, the only thing that matters, to run there, pry the window open with a claw—

"Derek," Kate says.

Derek nearly falls two stories. He scrambles down the side of the building, somersaults off the drainpipe and leaps the last few feet because it's _Kate_. There's one right thing left in the world, and it's Kate, standing in his doorway like she belongs there, like she's been _waiting_ for him.

"Kate," Derek says stoically, brushing his palms off on his jeans and walking the last few steps toward her as calmly as he can.

"Hey, handsome," she says, and Derek dies a little bit, in the best way.

"You're—" he starts, and finishes, the tips of his ears burning, "really beautiful."

She smiles at him.

"I didn't know you were back in town," she says. Something starts hissing in the back of Derek's mind. He pushes it away.

"I—It was a spur of the moment thing," he says.

"Why don't you invite me inside?" Kate suggests. "We can catch up."

Derek's mouth goes dry.

"I," he says regretfully, hating the stupid instinct he'd had to run here, "I don't have a key." He should've asked Stiles for it, he should've—

_Stiles_, the back of his mind says. He ignores it.

Kate grins at him. "I do."

Derek lets out a relieved huff. Of course she does. Kate's probably the biggest reason he even got this apartment.

She unlocks the door easily, locks it again behind them. She must've done it a thousand times. At least there's _something_ older Derek got right. He follows her inside. Her heels clicking across the hardwood, her soft waves of blonde hair, the sweet silhouette of her—it's incredible.

And she loves _him_.

There's a giant California King bed in the middle of the room. Older Derek obviously isn't lonely at all.

The hiss gets worse.

"You've been here before," Derek says.

"Of course I have, silly," Kate says, sitting on the edge of the bed and raising an eyebrow at him.

"You're here all the time," Derek says slowly.

Kate laughs. "Not_ all_ the time."

"Often, though," Derek says.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

"Don't call me that," Derek says without thinking. Kate laughs again. "Just tell me the truth."

"I'm not keeping a record," Kate says.

Derek's nostrils flare. "You've never been here before," he says. "What, did you—did you practice on another lock?"

Kate looks at him like he's losing his mind. "What?"

"You're not surprised," Derek says.

"Honey," Kate says. "You're gonna have to start making sense soon."

"That I'm—not older," Derek says. "I know what I'm supposed to look like, there's no way—"

"I don't care how you look," Kate says. It's true, Derek thinks, but she's nervous.

"I look like I'm in_ high school_," Derek says.

"But you're not," Kate says. "It doesn't matter to me."

"Why not?" _Because you love me_, Derek begs.

"Because I need your help," Kate says.

Derek blinks at her.

"Do you know the first rule of the Code?" she says.

"'Protect those who can't—'"

"If you get bitten," Kate interrupts, "if you ever become anything other than human, you have to kill yourself."

Derek's brows draw together. "But—"

"There are no exceptions, there's no way around it. And the second you stop following the Code, you're hunted."

"_Why_?" Derek asks. It's not fair, that's not how the Code is supposed to work, it's supposed to _protect _people.

Kate shrugs. "I don't make the rules." She pulls down the high collar of her sweater, reveals a long, fierce pair of claw marks all across her throat.

Derek's eyes water.

"Peter attacked me," she says. The hissing turns to full-on buzzing, white noise blaring so loud it blocks out everything else. Peter hurt Paige, he killed _Laura_, and _now_—

Derek reaches out, touches the raised edges of the scar. His hand shakes. He can see it too clearly, Peter just slashing her open, watching her fall—

"I'm sorry," he says. His eyes sting. "There's something wrong with him, something—He's a monster."

Kate draws Derek in with a loose hug. He pulls her closer, kisses the side of her neck, just holds her.

"I knew you'd understand," Kate whispers.

Derek's fingers find the long line of the scar, trace it, anger boiling in him, lighting him up. "I'm gonna protect you," he swears. "Whatever it takes."

"It won't be easy," Kate says. "There are hunters looking for me, and there's this guy, he calls himself the Benefactor…"

Derek listens. He runs his fingers through Kate's hair, thinks of murder. Of finding Peter, throwing him through a wall, tearing his fucking throat out.

"I don't care," he says, when Kate's finished. "I don't care what happens to me, if I can't—" He stops, in case he's scaring her. "I just—" He watches her breathe, her chest softly rising and falling under her sweater, and thinks, _Anything, anything, anything_. "What do you need me to do?"


	3. Chapter 3

When he gets back, Stiles is sitting in the dark, waiting for him, his face lit by the glow of his phone.

"Where were you?" Stiles demands, standing up sharply. The shadows under his eyes are worse than ever, and there's something wrong with his heartbeat. "I thought—You can't just disappear, okay, I—"

"I went for a run," Derek says.

"To where, New York?" Stiles' hair is a mess; Derek has a weirdly vivid mental picture of him dragging his fingers through it. "It's been six hours, did you go to running _school_?"

"I can go where I want," Derek says, bristling. He hates this, Stiles treating him like—like some little kid who has to be looked after. Checked up on.

"Yeah, and you can also, I don't know, _tell_ _people_ _where_ _you're going_, so they don't just lose their—" Stiles rubs his eyes, drags his hand down his jaw. "We just paid fifty grand to get you back, I think you owe us a little—"

So that's all it is.

"I don't owe you anything," Derek says. The words come out sharp, angry. "I don't even know you."

"You're right," Stiles says. "You don't know me." The look on his face—Derek backs up, nearly hits the wall.

Stiles' hand shoots out to cushion the spot just behind his head.

"Hey," he says lightly. "I'm Stiles." He leans closer, tells Derek's ear, "I'm the guy who keeps saving your _reckless werewolf ass_."

He licks his lip, watches Derek squirm, but Derek can hear his heart, pounding out of control even worse than when they found him.

"You want a list?" Stiles says. "Because I can make you a list. I can make you a _list_ of lists. There is no _end _to the sheer amount of—" He catches Derek's eye, cuts off, starts counting on the fingers of his free hand. "Okay, so, the wolfsbane bullet, the, the kanima by the pool, _Jennifer_, this is twice now you've been kidnapped by the same nut by the way, maybe the _fifth_ time Scott and I had to track you down and _find _you like—" He huffs out a sharp breath, adds, "And, oh yeah, we just _drove to_ _Mexico_ to get you back. Scott and Lydia just got kidnapped, Scott was _tortured_ looking for you, you could maybe at least—"

"I never asked for your help," Derek says coolly, but his throat is on fire. He's not some—some little brother Stiles has to keep track of, he's not even in Scott's _pack_. Stiles should just leave him for dead if he's that much trouble.

"You don't need to _ask_," Stiles snaps.

"Scott's not my alpha," Derek says, "I'm not even in your pack. So why don't you just leave me alone?" Derek can take care of himself. He's going to look after Kate, protect her, he's not some useless kid, some dead weight Stiles has to drag around, stay up worrying about.

"Why—" Stiles mouth opens and shuts a few times before he says, eyes narrowed, "I thought we were _friends_, jerkoff, I'm just trying to—"

"Yeah?" Derek challenges, his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. "Because right now? You seem more like my stalker."

Stiles goes still, backs away. The back of Derek's head hits the wall with a thud.

"Fine," Stiles says. "Don't tell me anything. It's not like—" He scoffs. "Whatever."

"Not like what," Derek says, some kind of fire still burning in him, almost drowning out the sick feeling of the split second of shock on Stiles' face, the way it went blank so easily. "What, were we some kind of—"

"You know what?" Stiles says, throwing his hands up and stepping back again. "You can do what you want. It's your fucking life."

"Yeah, it is," Derek says.

"Well, great," Stiles says. "Guess I'll see you around then. Or, you know, not."

He walks away, leaving Derek still pressed against the wall, heartbeat drumming manically in his ears.

* * *

For the rest of the night, Derek lies in Stiles' bed, staring at nothing.

He doesn't dream.

* * *

Stiles' father intercepts him on his way out. "Going somewhere?"

"Home," Derek says. This is stupid. He has his own apartment, he doesn't need—

It's just stupid.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Stiles' father says.

"Why not?"

Stiles' father sighs. "You've been through a tremendous loss, Derek, it's natural to want to close yourself off to people—"

"I'm not," Derek says. "I'm going home. To my girlfriend."

Stiles' father raises his eyebrows. "Your girlfriend," he repeats.

"Yeah," Derek says, irritated. "Thanks for—the food, and everything, but she's waiting, so—"

"Derek, I'm not sure—"

"Yeah, well, it's my life," Derek says. His eyes prickle, burn, his breath catching in his throat, and he just has to run.

He feels the heat of Stiles' dad's gaze on his back for miles.

* * *

Kate's ordered food to the apartment: sushi and matcha ice cream, two sets of chopsticks and two plastic spoons. Derek's heart swells. They eat it all on his giant bed, and Derek hardly feels sick at all.

"You should stay here," Derek says, after, shoving the trash bag off the side and lacing his arm around her. She shivers a little, sinks into it. "Until we know you're safe."

"I'll never be safe here," Kate says. For a second Derek thinks she means the apartment, and his heart stutters, but then she says, "Beacon Hills wants me gone."

"Then we'll go," Derek decides, lying back on the mound of pillows. "Wherever you want."

"I'm broke, Derek," Kate says, slightly muffled, her head against his chest, blonde waves spilling over his shoulder. "And I'm sick of running."

"You shouldn't have to." Derek thinks of Peter again, of what he did to her. He has the worst suspicion it's all about him, somehow, like Peter can't ever stand to see him happy. Like this is Derek's fault, really, because everyone around him gets hurt, and he should know that by now.

"You said there's a list," he says, his pulse picking up with a sudden, terrifying idea. "Someone's offering money in exchange for—And you deserve it. And he—"

Kate curls closer, looks up at him through her eyelashes. "What are you saying?"

"Peter's on the list," Derek says.

* * *

"I'm sorry," he tells Stiles later. "I—It's been a lot."

"Don't worry about it," Stiles says. He's researching, staring at his laptop screen, doesn't even turn around.

"I don't think you're a stalker."

"Wouldn't care if you did, dude," Stiles says, so casually Derek might've believed him if not for the slightest uptick in his heartbeat.

"Still," Derek says.

"Cool," Stiles says.

Derek just stands there, hovers like an idiot in one of older Derek's oversized shirts, hands shoved in the pockets of Dad's jacket.

"I brought your shirt back," he says.

"Keep it," Stiles says shortly.

"I don't need it," Derek says.

"Then throw it out."

Derek swallows hard, stares down at nothing.

"Any new theories?" he asks, after a while.

"None that hold up," Stiles says.

The silence is a sound; Derek can't stand it.

"Malia's your girlfriend, right?" he says, eventually.

"Yup."

"And you're her anchor."

"I guess."

"Do you love her?"

Stiles huffs, looks up. "When did _you_ become the talky one?"

"It's just a question," Derek says.

"Yeah, and kind of absolutely none of your business."

"Fine," Derek says.

"It's new," Stiles says, after a few minutes of silent key-tapping. "I'm trying this weird new thing where I don't get totally obsessed with people I barely know."

"How _do_ you know her?" Derek asks casually.

"Wow, you're just full of questions today."

"It's just," Derek says, shrugging a little. "I don't even know my own life."

"Jeez," Stiles says, shutting the laptop with a pained expression. "You're right, I'm the worst. What do you wanna know?"

* * *

Malia wants to go to some club, so they go to some club, and Derek watches her grind on Kira and then hang off Stiles' shoulder like he's furniture, drinking a giant bright drink so sharp with sugar it makes Derek's nose itch.

"Hey," Scott says. Derek spins. He didn't hear him coming over the thumping bass. Or maybe being an alpha means you can move without making any noise at all. Mom—

Derek swallows hard.

"Hey," Scott says again, softer. Somehow, despite the music, Derek hears him. "Are you okay?"

It's easily the stupidest question an alpha has ever asked him, but it sounds different from Scott. Genuine.

"Not really," Derek says.

"If Stiles' place isn't working out," Scott says, "my house has a guest bedroom no one's using."

Derek looks at him. "It's not—I have an apartment."

"You should be around people," Scott says, and before Derek can protest, goes on, "Look, I—I'm not your alpha. I know that. But that doesn't mean you're alone."

"Why?" Derek asks. He doesn't mean to, but it makes no sense. "How do we know each other?"

"Peter was my alpha, once," Scott says. "It kind of made us... brothers."

Peter.

"After he—" Derek can hardly breathe. "I was his beta? After he _killed_—"

"You didn't know," Scott says.

Of course. Of course Derek didn't know, he never does. Not until it's too late.

He feels sick.

"We didn't always get along," Scott says. "But things are different now. They've been different for a while. So if you need—"

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why are things different now?"

"I..." Scott considers this seriously. "I think we just grew up."

* * *

Lydia spends forty-five minutes grilling Derek on werewolf lore before Stiles asks her to dance. He winks at Derek over her shoulder before breaking into some of the most ridiculous moves Derek has ever seen.

Derek bites back a grin.

When he looks away, Malia is staring at him.

* * *

"Peter," Derek says on the drive home. He's in the back seat this time, Scott at his side. Malia's lounging in the front, her head in Stiles' lap, which doesn't seem very safe. "What kind of alpha was he?"

Scott grimaces.

Derek's stomach tightens.

"Not the kind that gives you a choice," Scott says.

Derek thinks of Paige waiting in that hallway, thinks of waiting like an idiot, stupidly far, for some Alpha to—talk to her, explain—

Thinks of her scream...

"Hasn't changed much, then," Derek says.

"Yeah, no," Stiles says, watching Derek in the rear view mirror. "He was never really the cuddly, heart of gold type. More the... kidnappy, murdery, claw his own beta through the chest and just leave him to bleed out type."

Derek's breath sticks in his throat. "He just left Scott like that?"

"Me?" Scott asks. "No, he didn't do that to me."

"Yeah, he was a little busy trying to compel Scott to kill us to bother with the family package," Stiles says.

"To _kill_—"

"Apparently you can't be in two packs at once," Stiles says. "So naturally the only reasonable solution is to kill all your friends. And their dads, because hey, once we're getting started—"

His oh-so-casual voice goes brittle over _dads_.

Derek is so furious, he can hardly breathe.

Except that's not true at all. He's breathing easier than he has in days, anger settling low inside him, turning the weight of everything into focus, into fuel. His wolf, practically playing dead since Mexico, rears its head and roars, and he holds it in place, controls it without even thinking.

He could fight an army on this rage. He could _win_.

"Where is he?" Derek asks. His voice is very level, betraying nothing. His new anchor rolls smooth and powerful in his chest, gives his slumped spine a new shape. "I think it's time for a family reunion."


	4. Chapter 4

Scott and Stiles exchange glances.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Scott says carefully.

"He's hard enough to handle when you're—" Stiles makes a long upward gesture. "Full-power."

"He killed my sister," Derek says.

"Exactly," Scott says. "You're not thinking straight, you're gonna be reckless. It's too dangerous."

"You're not my alpha," Derek says coldly. "I don't need your permission."

"That's true," Scott says. "But you do need us to tell you where he is."

"And that's never gonna happen," Stiles says.

"Sorry," Scott says.

Derek presses his lips thin, nostrils flaring.

"C'mon, Der," Stiles says, reaching back to squeeze Derek's shoulder consolingly. "We just don't want you getting hurt."

Something in Derek snaps.

"I'm. Older. Than. You," he grits out, shrugging Stiles' hand off. "I don't need you, or anyone else, looking out for me. I can handle myself."

"I'm sure Laura was strong too," Scott says gently.

"Laura_ trusted_ him," Derek says, ignoring the stab of casual past tense. "I don't."

"So what, you're invincible?" Stiles asks. "Trust me, if he's laying low, you do not want—"

"You have no idea what I want," Derek says tightly.

"Right," Stiles says, his features rearranging into nonchalance just a second too late. "I don't know you. I've got nothing to do with you. You don't trust anyone, you don't need anyone, we're insulting you by even giving a—You know what? I miss older you. But I guess just when he gets his head out of his ass and lets someone help him once in a while he devolves back into you, huh? Like a fuckin' Pokemon. Mystery solved."

"_I'm sorry_ if me trying to have some _tiny bit of control _over my own life _bothers_ you," Derek enunciates.

Stiles makes a noise, turns back to the road.

* * *

"Derek, c'mon," he says at the next red light, dislocating Malia slightly from his lap as he turns around to face him. "That's not—We just wanna help."

"Then stop treating me like a _child_," Derek says. "I'm an omega now. I need to prove I'm not _weak_."

"You don't need to prove that to us, dude," Scott says encouragingly.

"There are other packs in the world besides yours, Scott," Derek says. "And they're not as nice."

"Yeah, we know," Stiles says.

"You've been up against another pack?" Derek asks.

"Actually," Stiles says, an uncomfortable look growing on his face, "You were. When you were an alpha."

Derek stares at him.

"I was an alpha," he asks.

"Yeah," Stiles says, looking like he spilled some terrible secret.

"When, I mean—" Derek struggles. "Who did I _kill_?"

"Peter," Scott says.

* * *

"I don't understand," Derek says, pacing a square on the floor of the McCalls' living room. "If I killed Peter, how is he—How are _you_—"

"I was never your beta," Scott clarifies.

"And it's complicated," Stiles says. He's on the couch, eating cold lo mein he found in the back of the fridge with his fingers, Malia curled around him like an oddly-shaped cat.

"Complicated how?" Derek can't stop the frantic buzz of sudden hope. "He was dead, and now—How does it work? Is he—Have I tried—"

"We don't know how exactly," Stiles says. "But you don't wanna do what he did."

He doesn't know. He lost his mother, he doesn't know what it's like to lose _everyone_. And then to hear that there's a way—

"He bit Lydia," Stiles says, like he knows what Derek is thinking. "It could've killed her."

"Why would that—"

"And then, after, you know—"

"After I killed him," Derek says. It's not like he regrets it. And it's not like it lasted.

"Right," Stiles says. "After that, he started, I don't know, showing up in her dreams. Like _haunting_ her."

"Why?"

Stiles shrugs. "And then he started, like, possessing her. Making her do things for him."

Well, that sure sounds like him.

"He waited for a full moon," Scott says. "It was Lydia's birthday, he had her put something in the punch."

Stiles makes a face. "Everyone was, like, tripping out."

"And then he had her drug you with the same stuff and drag you to the H—to the house."

"Older me?" Derek's seen that picture. He's seen _Lydia_. "How?"

Stiles shrugs again. "She wasn't herself."

"She said she doesn't really remember much after that," Scott says. "Just Peter coming out from under the floor."

"And using you to heal himself," Stiles says.

Derek thinks he's heard something like this once. The healing part, not the—resurrection. "Is that why I'm not an alpha anymore?"

No, it can't be, he realizes almost immediately, because Stiles said there was another pack.

"Nah, that happened later," Stiles says.

"And then he was just—back?" Derek asks. "Exactly the same?"

"Seems like it," Stiles says.

But the hope is already fading. Whatever Peter did, he set it in motion before he ever died. Even if there was a way, even if it wasn't—It still wouldn't work.

They're just gone.

Derek stops pacing, takes the end of the couch, head in his hands.

Stiles puts the lo mein on the floor, wipes his fingers on a bunch of tissues, and maneuvers him-and-Malia closer. She opens her eyes, stares balefully at Derek.

"Hey," Stiles says, and rests his hand on Derek's hunched back.

Malia unwraps herself from Stiles, stretches, and makes for the refrigerator.

* * *

When he gets home, Kate's wearing a tight white tank top and jeans, her own clothes, but she smells like him. Derek's wolf curls warm around itself.

She been waiting for him, but she stops, inches away. "Did you bring me a present?"

He shifts awkwardly on his feet. "They won't tell me where he is," he says.

Kate frowns.

"But we'll find him," Derek says, more confident than he feels. "Or—I can tell them what he did, they can—"

"No!"

Derek looks at her.

"No," Kate says, quieter.

"They can protect you," Derek says.

"I have you to protect me," Kate says, and kisses him. It's a heady kiss, deep, perfect. He's a little lightheaded when she pulls back, smiles at him. "What do I need them for?"

"I'm an omega," Derek says, tries to sound—calm, mature, unemotional. "Scott's an alpha, and Stiles—"

"He's _human_," Kate says.

"So?" Derek works to tamp down the weird rush of defensiveness. "He's still—They're a strong pack."

"They're a bunch of teenagers," Kate says.

"They're smart," Derek says. "And loyal."

Kate sighs. "If you don't wanna help me..."

"No!" Derek draws her in again, rubs her back, reaching under her tank top to work the tense muscles there. She shivers, wraps her arms around him. "No, I do," Derek promises. "It's my fault Peter ever did this to you, I'm not gonna—"

"Is that all I am to you?" Kate asks. "Just a guilt trip?"

Derek pulls back, looks at her.

"Of course not," he says. "I wanna help you, I wanna—But I don't know what to do."

Kate reaches up, threads her fingers through his hair, pulls just a little.

Derek nearly purrs.

"We'll think of something," Kate says.

* * *

Stiles and Scott have school. It seems impossible, that something as ordinary as _school_ still exists, after everything. But there it is, Beacon Hills High, looking just the same as ever. From right here Derek can almost believe that he's still a teenager, still has a pack, a family. He's just going to school, going to play some basketball, go home and be the beta everyone is too busy living their complicated lives to even pay attention to. He used to resent that, how no one took him seriously, included him in the big discussions, what does little beta Derek have to say about any of it? Not an alpha, not even in training, not anything. Just surrounded by his pack, just—And Dad would still be alive, he decides. Still ruffling his hair and making dumb dad jokes and laughing with Mom about things that went way over Derek's head. All of them breathing, and living, and just being—

"Shouldn't you be in class?"

Derek almost smiles. He almost smiles seeing _Mr. Harris_.

He's going crazy.

"I'm not registered yet," he says.

"It's January," Harris says.

"Late transfer," Derek lies.

Harris sighs. "And then they expect teachers to miraculously—" He stops. "Did I teach a relative of yours?"

"No," Derek says.

"An older brother," Harris says.

"I'm—" Derek swallows. "I just have one sister. And she's younger than me."

Harris takes off his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose.

"This town doesn't make any sense," he says, and goes back inside.

* * *

Malia has school too. She's in all of Stiles' classes, which should be impossible, considering—

"Yeah," she tells Derek at lunch. "Yeah, I lived in the woods as a coyote for years. So what?"

"But you still know geometry?"

She frowns at him. "I'm not an idiot."

"I didn't say—" Derek gives up.

"She's very intelligent," Stiles says, taking her hand.

"Don't patronize me," Malia snaps, and steals his chips.

"Hey," Stiles says. "We talked about this."

"You can have half," Malia says, tearing the bag open and depositing a chip on her plate, a chip on his...

There's one chip left after she's done dividing.

"Here," she says, and gives it to him.

Derek looks at Stiles.

"Progress," he says, shrugging, and pops it in his mouth.


	5. Chapter 5

Derek's on his way back to Kate when he hears the scream.

* * *

"So it's like..." Derek struggles. "A vision?"

"No," Lydia says. She's shaking, breathing hard. Kira holds her by the shoulders, sweeps a wild strand of hair out of her eyes. "It's just a feeling. A really, really horrifying feeling."

"Banshee Monday horrifying or extra spicy horrifying?" Stiles asks.

"I'm not using that rating system," Lydia says. "But if I was, this would be a ghost pepper."

"A what?"

"It's the hottest chili pepper in the world," Lydia says. "It's four hundred and one point five times hotter than Tabasco sauce."

"Four hundred and one _point five,_ huh," Stiles says. "Awesome."

* * *

It's a baby.

She's tiny and pale and dressed in a little coat with wolf paws for mittens.

Her little pink hat has wolf ears on it. Underneath, her eyes are wide open and bloodshot.

Derek has never felt sicker.

"Someone killed a baby," Stiles says, fighting not to freak out. "Someone murdered a baby in little wolf hat and _wolf paw mittens_ and dumped her body in the fucking woods. Who _does_ that?"

"Don't—" Scott says, like the dead baby might be badly affected by Stiles' choice of expletive.

"No, seriously," Stiles says. He's very pale, and his eyes are watering. "What the fuck? This is whole new levels of screwed up, even for us."

Lydia hasn't said a word since they found her.

"It's not your fault," Kira tells her. "You did everything you could."

Lydia stares at her.

"What's the point?" she asks. "What am I supposed to do with this if I'm always too late?"

Malia makes a miserable whining noise and buries her head in Stiles' chest. His arms come up around her, draw her close.

"Next time will be different," Scott says firmly.

Lydia lets out a shaky sob-laugh, eyes wide. "_Next_ time?"

"We'll be faster," Kira says.

"Cora was right," Lydia says. "We really do just find the bodies."

"_Cora_ said that," Derek asks.

That picture at his apartment, it still doesn't—That's not Cora, that's not his Cora. His Cora hates the fifth grade and stole his brand-new copy of Order of the Phoenix before he could finish it to use spoilers as bargaining chips.

She doesn't stand here and look at _this_.

"What do you—do?" Derek asks. His head spins. "When you find—We can't just _leave_ her, but—"

"I texted my dad," Stiles says, waving his phone slightly behind Malia's back, his other hand running rhythmically up and down her side. "But he's—He's gonna need a story of how he found her, you know? Can't really just say 'banshee did it.'"

"I didn't do anything," Lydia says sharply.

"Found it," Stiles corrects. "Sensed it. I didn't mean—"

"Oh, who cares," Lydia says, and leans her forehead heavily on Kira's shoulder.

* * *

"_Jesus_," Stiles' father says, shining a flashlight over the spot. The baby looks worse under the bright beam, skin tinged pale purple-blue, her little face contorted in pain. "What the hell have you gotten yourselves into?"

"It wasn't us," Stiles says, like that's a _possibility_. "Lydia's a banshee, I told you. She had a ghost pepper-level feeling."

"A—" Stiles' father shakes his head. "You need to get out of here, I've got backup already on the way."

"Right," Stiles says, nodding.

"And next time Lydia gets a '_feeling_?'" Stiles' dad adds.

"Yeah?"

"For the love of god, don't bring a crowd."

* * *

"Derek, there's something—" Stiles says, his whole body an apology. He'd pulled Derek aside as soon as the group got to his house. Most of them sprawled in various despondent positions on or around the couch. Malia followed Stiles, is only now standing down the hall, waiting, because Stiles asked her to. "There's something I haven't told you, and it's—But listen, it's not your fault."

Derek tenses. There's something else, of course there is. What is it this time? He couldn't have been a very good alpha, considering he's all alone. Where are his betas? Did he get them killed too?

"It's about—" The pained look on Stiles' face gets worse. "Derek, it's about the fire."

A new weight settles over Derek's chest, tries to strangle him.

"What'd I do?" he manages.

"No, it wasn't—" Stiles shakes his head. "It's gonna sound, to you—But no one's gonna blame you but you, okay? You didn't—"

"I didn't know," Derek says dully.

Of course. Of course he didn't.

"No, listen," Stiles says, then, "She manipulated you, you couldn't have—"

"Just tell me what I did," Derek says tightly. Maybe too tightly. Down the hall, Malia hisses at him.

"You didn't do anything," Stiles says. "Forget it. It doesn't matter."

* * *

Malia watches Derek, barely blinking, for a long time. Even Stiles notices.

"Hey, easy," he says, tilting her face gently towards him. "He didn't do anything, okay? I said something dumb, that's all."

Derek wonders what _dumb_ thing Stiles was planning to say about how the fire wasn't Derek's fault.

"Who would kill a baby?" Kira asks.

"Child sacrifices date back to Aztec times," Lydia starts. Derek rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, but she wasn't sacrificed," Stiles says, cutting the Wikipedia lecture short. "There were no ritualistic wounds, or—and her blood wasn't drained—"

"How do you know that?" Kira asks.

"Because it settled," Stiles says. "That's why she looked bruised, it's livor mortis."

"Maybe it wasn't supernatural," Scott says. "Maybe it wasn't even murder. Someone could've accidentally—"

"Or someone could've found their child dead and panicked," Kira says.

"And dumped her in the _woods_?" Stiles says.

"What if the baby was supernatural?" Scott suggests. "Someone could've, I don't know, killed a fox or something, never realizing—"

"Or only realizing once the body shifted back," Kira says.

"Why would someone kill a baby fox?" Stiles asks, visibly disturbed. "They're like the cutest things ever."

"Because baby foxes turn into adult foxes?" Lydia suggests. "Which are less cute, more—"

"There weren't any hunter's marks on her," Derek points out. "No traps, no arrows. Nothing that broke the skin."

"So what, she was poisoned?"

"Or smothered," Lydia says.

"She was wearing a little wolf coat!" Malia snaps. "Are you saying someone was really so stupid they couldn't tell the difference?"

"He's saying maybe that was added later," Lydia says. "You are, right?" she asks Scott.

"Someone just _happened_ to have a little baby sized—"

Scott covers his eyes. "Can we—"

He cuts off when Stiles' father comes in with a file folder and a dark look in his eyes.

"It's late, Stiles," he says. "I think it's about time everyone went home."

Derek stands up.

"Derek, you can stay." It doesn't sound like a suggestion. Derek sits down.

Stiles hugs Lydia, pats Scott on the back, kisses Malia goodnight. His father waits until they're all gone.

"Dad, what is it?" Stiles asks, the easy goodbye grin slipping off his face. "Did something else happen?"

"I got the preliminary report on that kid you found," Stiles' father says. "They've nailed down C.O.D."

"What is it?"

"She was smothered to death," Stiles' father says. Stiles closes his eyes, rubs his eyelids, drags his hand down his face. "Which is especially interesting because the M.E. found animal hairs in her throat."

"God," Stiles says, and sways a little. Derek shifts closer, steadies him.

"That's not all," Stiles' father says, hesitating a little. "The animal hairs the M.E. Found..."

"What about them?" Derek says, but Stiles' father isn't looking at him. He comes closer, puts a supportive hand on Stiles' shoulder.

"Stiles," he says, and Derek knows the look on his face. It's the same look Stiles has been giving him any time he mentions Derek's family, what happened to them, what Derek did.

"Stiles," his father says heavily. "Stiles, they were coyote hairs."


	6. Chapter 6

"It's not Malia," Stiles says. "If it's, it's, it's a coyote, there are thousands of coyotes in California. It's not the one who turns back into a _teenage girl._"

"Stiles," Stiles' father says.

"No, you're wrong!" Stiles snaps. "I know her, okay, she wouldn't do this. She couldn't."

"Stiles, I know you don't want to think—"

"I'm thinking, okay?" Stiles says. "I'm thinking there's no way Malia would do this. I'm thinking you're way off base, there's gotta be—It's too easy, okay, it's never this simple."

"Stiles, life isn't a Rube Goldberg machine," Stiles' father says. "It's Occam's razor."

"No, no, it's not!" Stiles says. "Occam's razor would rule out werecreatures completely, because they're ridiculous. Our lives are ridiculous. There's nothing simple about it."

"Stiles," Derek says.

"No, not you too," Stiles says sharply. "You can't—Malia's the one who found you, okay, she's the one who figured it out, look at this."

He pulls his phone out, taps rapidly at the screen.

"See? She's brilliant, she's Lydia-level, if she _had_ killed something, don't you think she would've covered her tracks?"

Derek takes the phone from Stiles' trembling hand, looks at the screen.

The last text is just one word.

"'Nahual'?" Stiles' father says, leaning over Derek's shoulder.

"Yeah, it's, it's like a spirit animal, it's one of the oldest werewolf legends ever. The Aztecs—"

"Stiles—"

"She didn't do it, Dad," Stiles says desperately.

"Stiles, are you really trying to defend Malia on the basis that she would have killed a baby _better_?"

"No," Stiles says quickly, then, "Maybe? I don't—"

He drags his palm over his eyes. When he's done, he says in a small voice,

"What if I—" He pulls his knees up against his chest, secures them with his arm. "What if I… gave her something?"

"What are you talking about?"

"That night, the night we, you know—It was in Eichen House."

"Stiles, are you saying you had sex with Malia in an asylum?"

Stiles flushes. "It wasn't—planned—"

"No, I didn't think so," Stiles' father says. "I'm guessing you didn't use—anything?"

"I didn't really think to pack condoms in my overnight bag, no," Stiles says.

Stiles' father rubs his brow. "Stiles, you were _possessed_."

"_Exactly_," Stiles says. "What if I—What if we just think the nogitsune's gone, and really I just—passed it on? Like a—like a supernatural—"

"A supernatural STD," Stiles' father says tiredly. Stiles nods. "You think Malia is possessed by the nogitsune?"

"I don't _know_," Stiles says. "I just know it's my face on all those security cameras, I killed people, maybe—"

"Not every killer is possessed, Stiles."

"I was," Stiles says. "And we were together, and now—Isn't it just too much of a coincidence?"

"Okay," Stiles' father says. "Okay. What's the test?"

"What?"

"How can you tell if someone is possessed by a Japanese fox demon? What are the symptoms?"

Derek just watches Stiles, white noise blaring in his ears. He'd been possessed, he'd said that in Mexico. Casually, jokingly. Derek hadn't even really paid attention.

Hadn't realized what that _meant_.

Something took him over, something trapped him inside himself and used him to kill people.

Stiles' hands are trembling.

Derek thinks of the sick feeling of Paige's death reverberating all through his hands, how he could never—How it was always there, buried under his skin. How he would've given anything, done anything to claw the muscle memory out, the feeling of her going completely still.

It's still there, even now, her last tremors, the way she was suddenly heavier, the _sound_—

How much of that does Stiles have?

Derek sits down next to Stiles, doesn't say anything. There's nothing to say, nothing that _helps_.

Stiles and his father are still talking, their voices a vague hum in Derek's consciousness. Then they're hugging, Stiles suddenly small under his dad's arms.

"—rest," Stiles' dad says, when they pull away.

"What?" Derek says.

"I said, 'It's late. You boys should get some rest.'"

"Yeah," Stiles says, nodding. "Yeah, you too, Dad."

"We'll check that out in the morning," his father says. "I'll make breakfast, it'll be—"

"One to tell the grandchildren," Stiles says, but he waves his own sarcasm away. "No, it's—Yeah, we should just sleep. G'night, Dad."

Stiles' father heads to his room, but Stiles just sinks back into the couch, head in his hands, and Derek remembers: _Kate._

Kate's back at the apartment, waiting, but Stiles is here, and Derek can't just leave him alone.

After the Malia thing, after—He'll tell Scott what Peter did, the pack will protect her. They're stronger, smarter, they'll be better.

And maybe it'll take Stiles' mind off things. Distract him.

Stiles is a small, dark eyed coil on the couch, hugging himself warm, shivering.

Derek lays his hand, careful, on Stiles' shoulder.

"Hey," he says.


	7. Chapter 7

Derek doesn't remember falling asleep, but he must have, because he wakes up to Stiles shaking his shoulder, saying, "It's Lydia, she's at Scott's, they—"

Derek nods, stands, follows him.

* * *

"She just started screaming," Scott says, over the onslaught. "She won't tell me anything."

They've laid her out on the couch. Kira half-kneels, half-sits by her, her hand tight in Lydia's white-knuckled grip.

Derek reaches out tentatively, touches her wrist.

The effect is instantaneous and paralyzing; Derek's head feels like it's about to split open. Pain slides up his veins like a living thing, sucks him dry.

"What is it?" Stiles says, grabbing his arm. "What's happening to her?"

Derek's pulled pain before, pulled pain so bad she begged him to—But this is different. It has no one source; it seems to be coming from outside Lydia, pulling her towards it, but in half a dozen separate directions.

"I think she's getting a—_feeling_," Derek says through gritted teeth, his eyes watering. "But more than one, more like—" He makes an involuntary noise of agony and Stiles all but drags his hand off her.

"You don't have to do that!" he snaps. "There are—drugs, okay, I know she has a prescription somewhere—Scott, where's her purse?"

"I didn't bring it," Scott says regretfully. Stiles swears.

"Well, well call—Deaton's bound to have a, a, a sedative—"

They leave a message. Scott tries to, anyway; Stiles interupts about halfway through the first minute of courteous panic to say, "Why don't you just hire a fucking secretary and give us your cell phone number, it's not that fucking—"

"Stiles?" Scott's mother is dressed in scrubs and exhaustion, obviously just off shift. "What are you—Who's screaming?"

"Lydia," Scott says quickly, "and she won't stop, she can't even tell me—"

"Alright," Scott's mother says. A layer of exhaustion just fades into the air. "Okay, we can handle this. Can you get the bags out of the car, please?"

With Scott dispatched, Scott's mother replaces Kira at Lydia's side, puts her hand to Lydia's forehead. "You're burning up," she says, so Derek tries to explain about the splitting feeling, being pulled in every direction at once.

"You know, more werewolves should be doctors," Scott's mother says. "No more asking 'How are you feeling,' and expecting it to be an accurate—Thank you, Scott."

Scott nods and settles back at Lydia's side.

* * *

Braeden comes by about a half an hour later with a needle full of clear liquid and instructions.

"I'm not doing this again," she says, even though she's doing it now. "You can all die screaming for all I care."

"I think she has a crush on me," Stiles says after she leaves. "She's just shy. The fragile type, you know. Watches from afar. Waiting, just hoping—"

"Keep talking and I'll be the _reason_ you die screaming," Braeden says from just outside the door.

"I bet you say that to all the guys," Stiles says.

* * *

The sedative takes a while to kick in, and even when it does, it doesn't knock Lydia out. Her screams become whimpers, which are almost worse. Derek sits by her, pulls the leftovers.

"What the hell is going on?" Stiles asks, all humor gone. "It's never been this bad. What, is the whole _town_ dying?"

As it turns out, he's not far from the truth.

"It's a scavenger hunt," Stiles' father says grimly. Stiles puts him on speaker so Scott's mom can hear him too. "There's gotta be half a dozen at least. Different ages, races, genders... there's nothing tying these people to each other, but they just keep pilin' up. I can't do that thing we talked about, Stiles, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Stiles says, but it isn't: he's already started shrinking back into himself. "It's okay, Dad. We can handle this."

"I've got Alan Deaton here looking at what we've got, he says it's—"

"Probably coyote," Stiles says, and goes smaller, shoulders hunching, head sinking low. His voice doesn't change. "It's fine, Pops, we'll figure it out."

"I don't want you driving off to Mexico without telling me, alright?" Stiles' father says. Stiles winces. "Keep me updated. I wanna know everything you know."

"Promise," Stiles says, and ends the call.

Rage spirals in Derek's gut, watching him, watching Lydia, watching this pack leveled by someone they trusted, someone they accepted into their family and tried to help. Maybe Malia really is feral, really is too far gone, maybe Derek set her off, with his—whatever he was doing that upset her so much.

"She didn't do it," Stiles says again, like he can read the look on Derek's face. "I know it seems like—But she didn't. I just know she didn't. It wasn't her."

"Okay," Derek says, but he's always been a bad liar.

* * *

Slowly, the pack almost settles, Scott taking Lydia's hand, Kira stroking her hair, Stiles locking in on himself, unreachable. They're all worn out, exhausted, slipping into various states of unconsciousness, when Lydia stirs again.

The scream is bloodcurdling, visceral, Lydia's eyes opening wide. When it's over, she claps her hand over her mouth and sobs, says, "It's—"

"It's okay," Scott says, still holding her hand, but she shakes her head.

"It's not—"

"Just show us where to go," Kira says, and Lydia nods very quickly, stands up shakily.

Near there, she coughs; there's blood in her mouth.

"Shit," Stiles says, and goes paler. Scott loops his arm under Stiles', helps him the rest of the way.

There's a body, of course there is. It's a teenager, a girl, facedown in the dirt. There's an arrow piercing her through the spine, pinning her to the ground, blood flowing sluggishly around it.

Derek goes still.

Scott passes Stiles to Kira, kneels down by the body, and curls his hand around the base of the arrow, trying to stem the blood flow without pulling the arrow loose.

He goes still, too.

"It's her, isn't it," Stiles says, low.

Derek kneels next to Scott, lifts the girl's hair just enough to show her face.

Stiles makes a horrible sound. Derek stands up too quickly, gravitates towards him. The world spins.

It doesn't make any sense.

If, if Malia's the one killing all those people—

Then who did this?

Who killed _Malia_?


	8. Chapter 8

"_No_," Stiles says, snapping out of it, and half-bends, half-trips, palms pressing into the blood-damp dirt. He wipes them hurriedly on his shirt, puts two fingers to her throat.

"She's still breathing," he says, horror and relief and panic and loss washing up together in three words. "We can get her help, we can—This could be it, Lyds, this could be the time we actually get to change it."

Derek just looks at her, his throat closing and closing and closing.

Stiles was right.

Stiles was right, and Derek—

Maybe—maybe he'd wanted to believe it, the simplest answer, the easiest, she was—she _is_ difficult, blunt, harsh, clingy, territorial, and she hates Derek, or seems to, and she isn't—Stiles could do better, that's all—

But that was before. Now his insides are twisting painfully, his gut clenching, because Stiles was right.

And Derek, Derek was wrong.

* * *

It's the first time Deaton's ever come to them, and he brings a stretcher with wrist straps.

Derek doesn't understand why a vet would even have that—unless he was expecting something like this, someday. Or maybe this happens all the time. The chunk bitten out of Derek's own life feels like a wound, an itch he can't scratch. It unsettles him worse now, somehow, than before. Because he was wrong, he was _wrong_, he's been an idiot and maybe—maybe older Derek would've known better.

Deaton makes them all clear out while he does the surgery, but Derek remembers something, looks around for the cat, for Laura.

He can't find her.

It's stupid, it's such a stupid thing to panic about, but he named her Laura. He named her Laura and then he _left_ her, and now she's _gone_, and he can't even breathe.

"It's alright," Deaton says placidly when Derek finally manages to explain. "My niece has her. In a manner of speaking."

And what, what is that supposed to mean?

* * *

They all go back to the McCalls', where Scott's mother hugs Stiles, who looks dead on his feet, and Lydia, who looks—undead, honestly, dull-eyed and damp-haired and so unlike herself it's almost unsettling. Lydia cries a little against her, and Scott's mother says, "You're the reason she has a chance. Remember that."

She sits with them, waits with them, and Derek does too—he can't leave Stiles. But Kate's waiting, and, he realizes with sudden panic, she could be in _danger_—the benefactor, she said there was some benefactor going after supernaturals, what if—What if that baby was on the list? The easiest target? What if all of them were? What if someone's killing Kate_ right now_, planning to collect for her proudly displayed body?

He can't hold off any longer.

He tells them about the benefactor, about his theory that the bodies were weres. Names on a list, getting crossed off. And then he swallows hard and tells them—tells them—

"Your what?" Stiles says sharply.

"My girlfriend," Derek says, and the rest comes out in a rush. "Kate, she—She's back in town and Peter hurt her and she's been staying with me but now, if someone's hunting us, it's not safe—"

Everyone is staring at him. Stiles, in particular, looks shell-shocked, horrified.

"Did _no one_ think to tell Derek what happened?" Scott's mother says.

Stiles looks like he's going to be sick, like he's already been sick, sheet-white, eyes watering.

"What?" Derek says, but he has the most horrible feeling, looking at a gruesome picture he doesn't quite understand yet and knowing, already knowing how bad it will be.

"Derek, I'm sorry," Stiles breathes, and a tear drops down his cheek and Derek doesn't—doesn't—

"What?" he begs, and Scott's mother says, so gently, "Derek, Kate Argent set the fire."

* * *

No, Derek says, only he doesn't, because he can't make a sound. His breath is a rattle, a wheeze, a fucking miracle, he can't—

No, Derek says, and his vision blurs, and he can't—

"I'm sorry," Stiles is saying. "I should've told you, I should've just told you, Derek, I'm so—"

"Did I—" Derek manages, his throat a tight vise, air through it thin and unbreathable. The drained pain comes back, threatens to shatter his skull into pieces. Derek half-wishes it would. "Did I—help her?"

"No," Stiles says. "No, she was just—She's just horrible."

It doesn't make sense, it doesn't, _Kate_, she's, she would never—

"Why?" he chokes out, and then Scott is standing, walking to him, wrapping an arm around him as he shakes.

"She's psychotic," Lydia says. Her voice is scraped, Derek can hear it hurting her throat. "She probably thought it was funny."

"She's the one who kidnapped you," Kira says. "She's the nahual."

"She's a _nahual_?" Scott's mother asks.

Scott looks at her. "You know what that is?"

"A shapeshifter," Scott's mother says. "Supposedly, they can transform into animals by wearing their skin, and in that form, they can do magic."

"Wait," Lydia says. "They're not were-jaguars?"

"They can take the form of a jaguar," Scott's mother says, "but the magic—If Kate's a nahual, that could explain Derek's—condition."

"What, she's like a witch?" Stiles asks.

"Something like that," Scott's mother says.

"So she's just got a jaguar pelt lying around?"

Scott's mother smiles slightly, wanly. "Don't be so literal. A nahual can also use a totem to act as skin."

"A totem," Stiles says. "Like the pole?"

"A symbolic object," Scott's mother explains. "Skin, yes, but also claws or teeth, or even carvings—"

Stiles' phone hums and vibrates across the table.

It's Deaton.

"How is she?" Stiles asks immediately. "Will she be—"

"She's stable," Deaton says. There's something strange about the way he says it. Even stranger than usual.

"But?" Stiles asks nervously.

"But she's not Malia Tate," Deaton says.

"She's—what?" Stiles says. "We saw her, we—"

"She's Kate Argent," Deaton says.


	9. Chapter 9

It really is her.

She's been knocked out for the surgery and Derek can't help the lump in his throat, the instinctive panic of seeing her like that, laid out on the table like a sick animal. Her wrists are strapped down still, and Derek almost wants—almost _needs_ to ask, _Are you sure?_ Are you sure this isn't all some huge mistake, are you sure_ Kate_—You just don't know her, you just don't—understand, maybe—

Maybe—

Scott's hand finds Derek's shoulder, stays.

Derek wants, needs to throw up.

Kate stirs, blinks slowly into focus.

"Yeah, that's right, bitch," Stiles snaps. "You're ours now."

Derek almost glares at him for talking to her like that. He fixes his gaze on the floor, teeth locked tight together, jaw tensed.

"And don't even try using Derek to get a better deal," Stiles says. "He knows everything."

Kate looks right at Derek.

His throat goes tight, all air stilling around him.

"Everything, huh?" she says, smirking. "I doubt it."

Her voice is—different.

"Unless he told you how much he loved fucking me," Kate says, and Derek's stomach drops, because this—this isn't Kate at all.

This isn't the right Kate at all, this isn't—

"I really think it was a growing experience for him," she muses. "Of course, in hindsight—"

"Shut up about him," Stiles says sharply. He's so angry he's shaking. "What did you do to Malia?"

Kate laughs.

Bile rises in Derek's throat.

It's the same laugh.

It's the same laugh, it's the same, she's the_ same_.

"I'm gonna kill you," Stiles says. "I won't feel bad about it, either. It'll be a fucking public service. Where _is _she?"

"Oh, honey," Kate says. "You never did get that message, did you?"

Something seems to occur to her; she laughs again.

"Oh, that's right," she says. "You got the message. You just followed it to _him_."

Derek can hear Stiles' heart stutter, then thump into overdrive.

"The text," Stiles says. "'_Nahual_.' It wasn't about the temple at all."

"Oh, it was," Kate says. She's still laughing, somehow, in every word that comes out of her mouth. "But it wasn't about _Derek_."

"You've been Malia since Mexico," Scott says.

"Finally," Kate says, "someone's paying attention."

* * *

Stiles does call his father this time. The phone rings four times and goes to voicemail. Stiles' hand tightens around the wheel.

"Hey, Pops?" he says after the beep. "So, funny story..."

* * *

Derek doesn't say much on the drive. He's pretty sure something terrible will happen if he tries making any sound at all.

Stiles keeps looking at him, Scott keeps looking at him, Lydia keeps... and he can just hear it, what they're all thinking. He wishes they'd just _stop_.

Sometimes Stiles looks over at him and his knuckles go white around the wheel.

"You can have the radio," Stiles says, eventually. Derek's been staring blankly out the window for any amount of time, not actually seeing anything. "You can do whatever you want with it. Fuck it up, I don't care."

The thing is, he's not lying.

* * *

There's food.

Derek can't even stand smelling it. His stomach tightens, recoils, he presses his lips thin together and tries not to breathe.

He's sick anyway, some rest stop in the middle of nowhere that already stinks of piss and vomit and Lysol that goes straight to his head till he's nearly keeled over, choking on the back of his own throat.

Stiles raps on the door, says—something. Derek can't understand words anymore.

He wipes his mouth, swipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand, steps dizzily back into the light.

* * *

The temple is exactly as Derek remembers it, he's just going in the opposite direction. Maybe it would have been better, maybe all of it would've been fine if Stiles had just gotten Malia out and left him. He's just been an idiot, he's just been a distraction, none of those people would've died and everything would be so much—

"Hey, don't," Scott says, touching his arm just enough to force him back to now. "Don't let her get to you. She's not worth it."

Derek could laugh, except he can't, except he'll probably never laugh again.

_Let _her?

She's already there. She's already destroyed everything.

Derek's just barely keeping the last wall standing.

* * *

They find Malia fully shifted, her eyes wide open and watchful. They narrow when Stiles says her name hoarsely, uncertainly.

She's trapped in a circle of mountain ash, and she shifts back to human slowly, like she's half-forgotten how. Stiles goes towards her, holds his arms open, but she walks around him, shivering slightly.

She doesn't seem to care she's naked until Stiles is pulling his plaid button-up off and offering it to her. Then her eyes drop, fill, but she takes it.

Underneath, Stiles' t-shirt says, _The third rule of Fight Club is have fun and try your best._

* * *

Derek gives Malia Dad's jacket. It doesn't matter.

They're all gone, and it smells faintly of Kate now, and they're all gone, and she's cold, and they're all gone, and he doesn't deserve it.

* * *

Wolfsbane doesn't affect were-coyotes like wolves. She was awake the whole time, just waiting.

Derek's throat hurts.

"I'm Derek," he says.

"No shit," Malia says.

* * *

There's food again. Malia eats like she hasn't in years.

"What are you staring at?" she asks. Derek forces his eyes away.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Derek says. Stiles turns to look at him.

"You didn't trap me in there, dumb-ass," Malia says.

"Still," Derek says.

* * *

They've been watching Kate in shifts; when they get back, it's Kira and Deaton. Kate's off the stretcher, sat in a metal chair with leather cuffs tight around her wrists. After everything, she's human; mountain ash won't hold her.

"Okay, who's taking next shift?" Lydia says.

"I'll do it," Derek says.

"Are you sure?" Scott says. "Because I could—"

"I'm sure," Derek says.

"And I'll take it with him," Stiles' father says. Derek looks at him. "That's how we're doing it, right? One adult, one teenager, one supernatural element, one human?"

"Yeah, that's it," Scott says.

"Good," Stiles' father says. "And there's one more thing that makes me the candidate to beat. I've got a sidearm, and I'm licensed to use it."

* * *

"Derek," Kate says. Every word is a taunt now, how did Derek not hear it before? "You came back."

"Tell me why," Derek says. He works to keep his voice strong, still.

"Oh, sweetheart," Kate says. "Do you really have to ask?"

"Answer the question," Stiles' father says.

"Or what, you'll shoot me?" Kate rolls her eyes. "You don't scare me, John. How many years have you been sheriff? How many years have you let _animal attack_ be an alibi for murder?"

"Well, why don't you answer me this, then," Stiles' father says. "Who put an arrow through your spine?"

"You're no one's victim, Derek," Kate says, ignoring him. "You're the predator. The good ones don't have blue eyes." She considers. "If there are good ones at all."

"So why didn't you just kill me then?" Derek says. His jaw is so tight it aches. "My family never did anything, it's me you hate—"

"And what kind of lesson is that?" Kate asks. "You get to go and they get to cry over their poor innocent blue-eyed beta? Start a war for their sweet little murderer that doesn't end until the whole town's leveled? No. You get to stay. You get to see the damage you do. And you get to know I did it, all of it, for you. That the day you snapped that poor girl's neck? You _lit a match_."

"That's not what happened," Stiles' father says. Derek focuses very hard on just breathing. "What happened is you, Kate Argent, murdered nine people. Whatever twisted logic you used to justify it doesn't change that."

"That's right," Kate says. "You're not even pretending to play for Team Human anymore."

"If that means destroying a family in the name of a mistake?" Stiles' father says. "Then hell no I'm not."

"A _mistake_." Kate laughs. "Paige Henry was fifteen years old. She wanted to go to Julliard. You know. _When she grew up_."

"There were human children in that house," Stiles' father says, and Derek stops breathing. "They were, what, a—sacrifice? All in the name?"

"I did what I had to do," Kate says.

"And having a physical relationship with a child," Stiles' father says, "De-aging him and jumping right back into that, you just had to do that, didn't you?"

"It was never about the _sex_," Kate says, disgusted. "You think I wanted to touch him?"

"If you didn't, you sure have an interesting way of showing it."

"I needed him to _trust_ me," Kate says. "He's no lovesick puppy going along. He was _begging_ for it."

Derek goes cold all over. He balls his hands into fists, shoves them into the pockets of his—

But he doesn't have the jacket anymore.

"We never actually," he says, and she laughs at him.

"Oh, we did," she says. "There was this one time... You were checking out colleges, and you called me for advice. Turns out Stanford has an _incredible_—"

"That's enough," Stiles' father says sharply.

"You got the call in my car," Kate says. "You were still smiling until you heard the sirens."

"I said _that's enough_."

Derek holds himself perfectly still, measures perfectly even breaths.

Forces himself to stare straight at her.

"I think it's about time for a shift change," Stiles' father says.

* * *

When Scott and his mother replace them, Derek walks very calmly past them, makes it all the way to the cruiser.

Then he starts shaking so violently he can barely see, can barely stand. Strong palms catch him by the shoulders, steady him, and Derek stumbles against Stiles' father's chest.

Stiles' father's arms come up around him, hold him still.

Derek sobs and sobs and sobs.

* * *

Derek sleeps at the Stilinskis' that night. He can't face going back to the apartment, not after—

He takes the couch. Stiles is as badly shaken as he is, or close; it's impossible to compare. Stiles needs his own room, his own bed. Derek just needs somewhere that doesn't stink of his lust for the woman who murdered his family.

Neither of them actually sleep.

* * *

Eventually Stiles gets out of bed, joins Derek on the couch. They talk in hushed voices, hoarse voices, voices raw from screaming wordlessly, soundlessly.

"I should've seen it," Stiles says. "I should've—I—"

He dips his head, drags at his hair.

Derek thinks, _It's not your fault._

He thinks, _You didn't know._

He thinks, none of that matters, none of those stupid reassurances ever matter, it doesn't shake the certainty that you could have known, you could have done something, if you were—stronger, better, smarter, less naïve, if you weren't so fucking selfish, if you didn't let yourself believe what you wanted to believe, if you'd have just paid a little more attention.

He doesn't say anything.

* * *

The first morning shift is Derek and Braeden, and before they relieve Scott and his mother, she says, "Do you want to hold the cat again."

"Laura?" Derek says.

"Is that what you call her?" Braeden asks. She considers this, nods. "I can see it."

"You're Deaton's niece," Derek says.

Braeden ignores this. "Do you want the cat or not?"

The thing is, Derek does.

* * *

"Derek, you don't have to do this," Scott says, just before they go in.

"Yeah, I do," Derek says.

* * *

"You just can't stay away, can you," Kate laughs. "And how sweet, you've brought your therapy cat."

Derek just glares at her. Laura settles warm on his lap, her little nose twitching. He reaches under her collar, scratches the back of her neck.

Braeden lays her hand on Derek's back, pulls it away. His glare goes glassy.

She tucks a small needle back into her pocket.

"We don't have much time," she says.


	10. Chapter 10

Derek can see everything.

The assessing look on Kate's face, the way she watches him go still. Her mouth quirks up slightly. She probably likes him better this way, forced quiet, forced frozen.

Derek can't believe how much he's come to hate that smile.

"You're Team Human," Kate says, relaxing in her metal seat. "Who knew."

"I'm not Team Human," Braeden says shortly. "And I'm not Team You. I'm Team Me. You did a lot of work for the Benefactor lately. That means you've got your hands in deep pockets. Assuming you live to collect it."

"And you want a cut," Kate says. She doesn't bother denying what she's done. Derek thinks of the baby in the woods, the bloodshot eyes, the little fragile face. She'd been wearing a hat with wolf ears. It was the kind of thing Mom probably would've found funny; she and Dad—

"No, I want all of it," Braeden says.

"All of it," Kate says. "And what's in it for me?"

"Hmm, I don't know," Braeden says, like she's talking to an idiot. It makes Derek feel just a little bit better. "Let's see. You'd get to _live_."

Kate looks at her like she's weighing her options. Maybe she'll say no; maybe the dose will wear off before anything can happen.

"You're not going to get a better offer," Braeden says. "And the clock's ticking. That sedative is spinning through his system right now. You've got minutes. So do we have a deal?"

Kate takes another appraising look at Derek, nods.

"What's the plan?" she asks.

* * *

The plan is Laura's collar, slipped from around the cat's neck, from over Derek's paralyzed hand.

Kate looks at it. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Braeden huffs out an exasperated breath. "It's a totem," she says slowly. "_Shift_."

"Into a cat," Kate says.

"This is a veterinary clinic," Braeden says. "This is how I get you out of here."

Kate looks down at the collar, wary.

"Tick tock," Braeden says, and holds it out.

Kate takes the collar between her hands.

At first, nothing happens.

Then Kate—shimmers. Her skin stretches, contracts, fighting to fit its new shape. Laura licks Derek's frozen fingers, backs into the open cave of his palm and presses her small body against him.

Kate ripples, goes translucent.

"What did you—"

But she can't speak. There are two many empty spaces in the shape of her, not enough mass to contain her throat.

She starts to shrink, but she can't shrink fast enough to hold herself together. She's as thin as a ghost, a stretched photograph.

Braeden flexes her fingers.

Kate breaks apart, fades into the air like so much carbonated fizz.

Braeden steps back, lays her palm on Derek's shoulder again.

Derek's eyes go clear.

"That's it?" he asks. "It's over?"

"It's over," Braeden says.

The relief will come; right now, Derek can't really believe it.

"Are you sure?"

"She shifted into a temporary burst of energy disguised as a cat," Braeden says. "Physically? You'd have better luck surviving a bomb going off in your throat."

She's explained this three times already. Derek just didn't dare to think it would _work_.

"Thank you," he says.

"I didn't do it for you," Braeden says.

Her phone is already in her hand; she hits 1 twice.

"It's me," she says. "It's done."

Under Derek's hand, Laura starts to fade.

* * *

The real Malia feels like family. Derek's almost forgotten what it feels like, the easy echo, the way your stomach settles, _you're home safe now, you'll be okay_. It used to flood him easy as breathing. The whole town felt like home because it was Hale territory, because you never got too far from family. He used to have so much he felt stifled, too warm, but now it just makes him hungry, homesick like he's managed not to be, somehow, all through this.

His old house is an empty lot, weeds growing through cracks in the pavement. It hurts to look at; he closes his eyes, tries to breathe in some hint of them, something left behind, even now.

There isn't anything. There isn't even smoke.

Derek presses his face into the crook of his elbow, pretends there's something.

They're just not here anymore. They just moved. They disappeared for their own safety and they didn't tell anyone where they were going because they didn't know who they could trust, and they're out there somewhere, and they're happy. And they're alive.

And they just don't want to see Derek anymore after what he's done, but that's okay. He understands, it's okay. As long as they're okay.

They still love him, they just can't look him in the eyes anymore.

And Cora's with them, and she's happy too. And she'll come see him, maybe, or maybe she won't, because she's too young to remember who he was when he wasn't a murderer, but that doesn't mean she doesn't blame him.

But maybe they think about him sometimes, whoever he used to be before he ruined everything. And maybe, maybe they don't completely hate him, or that part of him, at least.

He gets up eventually, walks aimlessly, wonders where home is supposed to be now.

* * *

He ends up back outside the clinic, following the thin thread of family. Malia's there, and Stiles, and the rest of Scott's pack, and Derek doesn't know what he's doing there anymore, what he's doing anywhere anymore, so he just stands at a distance, watches them live.

"You're lurking."

Derek turns to Scott, doesn't say anything, just looks at him.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Scott says. "It's just—you're really you."

So this is what older Derek does: he lurks.

That's just great.

"I just mean—" Scott says.

"Don't hurt yourself," Derek says.

"Kate's gone," Scott says.

"I know," Derek says, and he's starting to. There's still an edge of him expecting her around every corner, laughing, or just waiting for him, smiling that smile, but she's gone.

He'll convince himself eventually.

"You didn't deserve that," Scott says. "What she did to you, it wasn't—"

"Okay," Derek says, just so he'll stop. Scott's eyes go soft, sad.

Derek's always been a bad liar.

"Come inside," Scott says.

* * *

"Gone," Stiles repeats. "Like_ gone_ gone? Like _dead_?"

"She—" Derek struggles to explain it, gives up. "Yeah."

"I blew her up," Braeden says.

"Oh, of course," Stiles says agreeably. "Those bomb silencers sure are handy, aren't they? Yup, technology's really leapt forward in the past hour."

Braeden grabs his wrist, drops a lit, hissing cherry bomb into his palm.

Derek's heart stops. For a section of a second he forgets what she's doing, and he starts toward them—

"Calm down, cowboy, you know how this works," Braeden says, and blows the little bomb to fragments. It makes no sound as it fizzes into the air.

"_Oh _my god," Stiles says, staring down at his empty palm. His hand trembles. "Oh my _god_. What are you?"

"A fairy princess," Braeden says dryly.

"No, really," Stiles says. "An empath? Is this all, like, a mind game?"

"Just a sweet little sprite," Braeden says. If Derek didn't know better, he'd think she was almost enjoying this.

"The tattoo you gave us," Lydia says, and touches her wrist. "Allison and I. The bank logo."

"That bomb was so cool," Kira says. "How does it work?"

"It's a stored image," Braeden says.

"Like a photo," Kira says, awed. "Printed on _reality_."

"Printed on energy," Cora corrects.

"Printed on—" Kira repeats, eyes shining, but Derek can't hear her anymore.

His eyes are fixed on his sister.


	11. Chapter 11

"_Cora_," Derek says.

She must have come in while Braeden was dropping the bomb into Stiles' hand, because Derek didn't notice her, and there's no way he wouldn't have noticed his own sister. The tug of family is moon-strong. Derek could drown in it.

She turns around, sees him.

"Derek," she says. "You really are a kid."

Derek can't make himself care about that. He can't even force himself still. He's hugging her before he knows he's moved at all, eyes closing, breathing her in.

"God, you _suck_," Cora says, but her arms come up around him, pull him in close. "I told you to_ call me_ if anything happened. Do you even use the phone I gave you?"

"The—You gave me a _phone_?"

"And you saved my life, idiot. Don't lose your mind. It cost like a hundred bucks."

"But," Derek says, and trips over the lump in his throat. "I thought—After—"

She doesn't hate him.

Why doesn't she hate him?

"How'd you get out?" he asks instead. There's something wrong with his voice.

Cora pulls back, stares at him. "What'd she _do_ to you?"

"How?" Derek presses. He needs to know.

"I wasn't there," Cora says. "I wasn't home. I snuck out and met Brae."

"Brae," Derek says.

"Mom's emissary is her uncle," Cora says. "He didn't want to teach me anything. He thought he'd get rid of me easy—"

"Teach you," Derek says.

"God, didn't you hate how they all talked down to us?" Cora says. "Not an alpha, not an _alpha-in-training_, guess we're just useless betas then. Laura knew shit at eleven no one was ever gonna tell you." She shrugs. "I thought maybe he'd understand. Till he passed me off on his niece."

"Worst thing that ever happened to you," Braeden says.

"Yeah, I hate your face," Cora says. "But I made it to twelve, so."

"She's your pack," Derek realizes.

Cora raises her eyebrows. "Older you thought I was an omega."

"But he—" Derek stops. "But I was wrong."

"Two-wolf pack with only one wolf. I didn't try to explain it to him. Older you was a judgy fucker. He thought pack had to be Mom's or nothing."

"What happened to my pack?" Derek asks. Cora's face goes dark.

"Let's not," she says, but when he nods, stomach dropping, she says, "It was the alpha pack, idiot, not _you_," and hugs him close again.

* * *

"Tell me what happened to you," Cora says. There's fire in her eyes. She hasn't left his side since he hugged her.

"It's over," Derek says.

"I don't care," Cora says. "_Tell_ me."

Derek tells her.

* * *

"Show me your claws," Cora tells Malia.

Stiles makes a horrible noise.

They're cracked, bloody, some of them are missing entirely, fingertips barely scabbed over. Malia won't look at anyone.

"She needed a clean one, didn't she," Cora says grimly. "As a totem."

Malia nods slightly, eyes fixed on nothing and no one.

"It's alright," Cora says, gentler than Derek's ever heard her. "Brae?"

Braeden takes Malia's wrist, flexes her fingers.

* * *

"That bitch," Stiles spits, outside. "That _psychotic_—"

"I'm sorry," Derek says.

"Her _fingernails_, that's—that's torture, that's how they _torture_ people!"

"Stiles, I'm—"

"And the whole time I just bought it, I didn't even _question_—"

"Stiles—"

"Hit me."

"Stiles, I—What?"

"Hit me, okay? You deserve it, I should've told you what she did, I made it so much worse—"

"That's not—"

"Derek, just hit me!"

"Stiles, I'm not going to—"

"Why the fuck _not_?" Stiles snaps. He's shaking. "I ruined your life, I ruined Malia's life—"

"You didn't know—"

"Oh, come on, you know that doesn't fucking—I should've!"

"Right," Derek says, and it settles like a blow even if that wasn't what Stiles meant, even if Derek never really believed it when Stiles told him, _Derek, no, it wasn't your fault, you didn't_—

"No," Stiles says, catching the look on Derek's face. "Derek. That's not what I meant, that's not—"

"It's okay," Derek says.

"No, it's not, it's not, it's—" Stiles looks at Derek, desperate. "Please just fucking hit me."

"I don't want to," Derek says.

"Well, I was wrong, huh?" Stiles says. His voice is sharp, almost angry. "You're nothing like him."

This blow hurts worse. It's a struggle to catch his breath.

"I—hurt you? _He_—"

"He didn't break me," Stiles snaps. "He just didn't act like he couldn't even—_touch_ me, like I'd _crumble_—"

"I don't know what you want me to do," Derek says.

"Exactly," Stiles says. "Just forget it."

"What," Derek says. "What, what was I—Why would you _want_—"

"Just fucking forget it, okay?" Stiles says. "I should—Malia's in there, I should—"

"So then why aren't you?" Derek asks, struggling to make some sense out of all of this.

"Because I'm an idiot," Stiles says, and goes inside.

* * *

Cora's inside too. Derek doesn't need a—different reason. His sister's inside, his—He still has a sister and he doesn't need to stand out here trying to—to figure out—

He follows Stiles in.

* * *

Braeden's built Malia new claws. Better claws. Malia can't stop looking at them.

"It's not like the bomb," Cora says. "They're not going to fade. They'll last until yours heal."

Malia looks up.

"I—"

"I didn't do it for you," Braeden says.

"Brae," Cora says.

"It's just a job," Braeden says. Her jaw is set tight.

"Brae, don't run away again."

"I'm not _running_," Braeden says. "You've got your pack. _I did my job_."

"It's not a _job_!" Cora snaps. "And they're not my pack."

"They're Derek's pack," Braeden says.

"So what?"

"So I've got things to do."

"You know I'll find you again," Cora says. "Just—Why can't you—"

"Goodbye, Cora," Braeden says pointedly.

"I hate you," Cora says. "I really—Just _stop_."

"Why should I?"

"Because I have a job for you," Cora snaps. "So just _listen_ to me for fifteen seconds."

"Fine," Braeden says.

"Malia," Cora says.

Malia starts. Braeden's eyebrows go high.

"Malia," she repeats.

"She was kidnapped," Cora says, watching Braeden's face carefully. "She was trapped in a cage, you _know_ I know what that feels like."

"What do you want me to do about it?" Braeden says.

"What you did for me," Cora says. "If it was just a _job_."

"I got McCall's pack to find you," Braeden says.

"I'm not talking about the_ bank vault_," Cora says.

Braeden goes still.

Then she says, "Fine."

* * *

"Someone trapped you in a—" Derek starts, anger simmering in him, but Cora shakes her head.

"Not now, Derek."

"Who?" Derek asks.

"It doesn't matter," Cora says.

"It matters to me," Derek says.

But she's not listening to him anymore. She's watching Braeden build a cat the size of a dog out of the air. Matte black fur ripples lightly under her fingers.

"I can't run with you when you're shifted," Braeden tells Malia. But she's not looking at Malia, not really. "But she can."

"I have to run with her," Malia asks.

Braeden lets out a short, impatient breath.

"You don't have to do anything," she says tightly. "It—helped Cora. After. It might not help you."

Malia nods quickly. "I want to," she says.

She shifts.

Braeden's cat is already gone, but Malia is quick on her heels. The pack spills out of the clinic to watch them.

Braeden's cat speeds through the streets, finds the edges of town quickly, where abandoned stores meet overgrown wilderness, and darts into the woods. Malia disappears after her, something like a smile on her face.

"Remember?" Cora says, and grabs Braeden's hand. "'_Run_.'"

* * *

Derek falls back to the last lagging few, where Stiles clutches his side and groans, "The running. Why are we always _running_."

Derek's hand finds his side, pulls the cramping pain away.

"Ugh, you're the actual best," Stiles says, leaning into him. "But seriously. What's wrong with a nice, leisurely stroll? Something, I don't know, _peaceful_. Celebrate the fact that we don't have to run for our lives just this sec—"

Someone roars.

Derek's heart stops.

"What is it?" Stiles says.

"_Cora_," Derek says.

* * *

He finds Cora fully shifted, dragging a man caught in her teeth. He's bleeding, though not heavily, through her bite mark around his ankle. He kicks out; she shifts back and twists his leg behind him.

"What—" Derek says.

Cora looks up. Her teeth shine red. "He shot at Brae's bobcat," she says, and spits his own blood at his mud-tracked face.

"It's probably just a hunter," Scott says, looking pained. "He probably didn't mean—"

Braeden studies the arrow planted deep in the ground. Her bobcat finds Cora's side, curls around her legs, hissing at the attacker.

"No," she says. "He's the Benefactor."

"He's the—" Derek repeats, and stares at him. He looks—ordinary. Normal. As normal as anyone can look after being dragged through the woods with a giant bite bleeding mark around their ankle. "_He _paid Kate to kill those people?"

"To what?" Malia says. She's shifted back, hugging herself decent. "No, he didn't."

"This is his arrow," Braeden says. "It's the same one he used last time."

"No," Malia says, eyes narrowing. "No, that's crazy. You're crazy."

"What would you know about it?" Cora snaps.

"I know he's my _father_," Malia says.


	12. Chapter 12

"Malia," Malia's father says, and maneuvers his jacket off, wincing at the wound Cora gave him. His face is dirt-streaked and scratched up from the drag. His palms are scraped raw, and under the jacket, both his elbows are skinned. "I wanna talk to you, honey, I want to explain all of this, but—not in front of that thing."

_That thing _is Cora. Derek bristles, opens his mouth.

Scott lays his hand on Derek's shoulder.

"I'm not going anywhere," Cora says. "You shot at my—You shot at _Brae_. Tell me why."

"I'm not talking until it's gone," Mr. Tate says.

"'It'?" Braeden says. Her voice is very light, but there's a dangerous edge to it.

"That thing attacked me," Mr. Tate says. "I just want to talk to my daughter."

"You _shot_—"

"I shot at a dangerous animal," Mr. Tate says. "But once again the animal is just a decoy for the true monster."

Malia goes very pale.

Braeden notices.

"Then talk," she says, lacing her hand around Cora's wrist. A crow bursts from her open palm and flies deeper into the woods.

"That is the _coolest—_" Kira says, wide-eyed. Then, "Sorry. Not the time, I know. Sorry."

Cora eyes her warily, then nods, laces her fingers in Braeden's, and follows the crow's path.

"You should really get that bite looked at," Scott tells Mr. Tate.

"Should I?" Mr. Tate says flatly. "What a good idea. Why don't you go find your boss? I'd like to talk to my daughter."

Scott looks at Malia. She nods.

He goes.

* * *

"They've got it all wrong." Mr. Tate says. It's not a lie, exactly, but that doesn't mean anything. Maybe he thinks he's got a—a good reason to kill all those people. He attacked Braeden's bobcat. He called Cora a _thing_.

"Of course," Malia says, relief pouring off her. "You're not some—_Benefactor_, you never—"

"I am," Mr. Tate says.

Malia stares at him. "You are," she says. "But you didn't—you didn't _kill _people—"

"I did have them killed," Mr. Tate says. "But they weren't _people_."

Derek's gut twists hard. So it's not just Kate, it's not just one—Is _everyone_ like this?

"They were monsters," Mr. Tate says, the most horrible sincerity in his eyes. "Wild animals—Worse than wild animals. Hiding in plain sight. Buying _tacos_. Walking dogs. _Smiling_. As if—" His mouth twists. "As if they were_ normal_."

Malia is trembling, unable to tear her eyes from her father's face, and Derek doesn't know if he wants to shield her or rip her father's throat out.

"One of those things killed your mother," Mr. Tate says. "Your little sister. For years I've been hunting _animals_, setting_ traps_, while _they_—"

"Dad," Malia says. Her head shakes slowly back and forth, disbelieving. Her eyes fill. "Dad, it wasn't—It wasn't anyone you k-killed—"

"Baby, you don't know," Mr. Tate says gently. "You don't know what I took down. I did this town a favor."

Stiles catches up with them then, gasping, hand at the stitch in his side, just as Lydia says, "You killed _kids._" His head whips toward her, then Mr. Tate, still crumpled on the ground, Malia shivering under her father's jacket. "There was a _baby girl_—"

Derek reaches out, takes Stiles' pain without looking. It's knife-sharp and then shadow-faint, disappearing too quickly. He doesn't move his hand.

"She wouldn't have been one for long," Mr. Tate is saying. "She'd have grown into a monster like the rest of them."

"Daddy," Malia begs. "It wasn't—You know who it was, I t-_told_ you—"

"But that's not true," Mr. Tate says. He struggles and fails to stand, reaches out for her. "You're not like them. You're my little girl. You don't have to protect these—killers, they're not your _friends_—"

Tears are streaming freely down Malia's face.

Derek's throat is very tight.

"Yeah we are," he says.

He steps closer to her, brushes her shoulder with his.

"Yeah," Stiles says, mimicking him on Malia's other side. "You don't know anything about us."

"We're all 'monsters,'" Lydia says.

"The thing is," Stiles says, "you're the one killing people."

"I know you've killed people, _Stiles,_" Mr. Tate says. "That hospital? And you." He looks at Derek. "That little girl... And god knows what the rest of you have done."

"Stiles was possessed," Derek says. The words come out fast and hot and angry. "The nogitsune _used_ him. If he could've—"

"Derek didn't want to do it," Stiles interrupts. "Paige _begged _him. And he took her pain until it was over, and he _still_—"

Derek shudders, struggling to fight the sudden muscle memory. He forces his hands into fists at his sides. Stiles' fingers graze his, unlock them gently.

"And what happened to your family," Stiles says quietly. "It was an accident."

"But you _planned_ this," Lydia says. "You made a list. And you'll make another when it's all crossed off. It'll never be enough."

"Those things slaughtered my family," Mr. Tate says. Eyes wide, pleading. "What would you do? If it was yours? If you spent years thinking it was _animals_, when really—And then your eyes opened, and you saw what was really out there in the dark..."

Malia bites her lip. Blood drips down her chin.

Her fangs are out.

Stiles puts his hand on her shoulder.

She shakes her head, shakes it off gently.

"Dad?" she says. "Dad, look at me."

Her new claws gleam in the darkness. Blood shines in her mouth.

"This is what I am, Dad," she says. "This is who I am."

"No, honey," Mr. Tate says, but there's a sudden thread of fear along the edge of him. Derek bites back bile. "That's just—I know who you really are. You don't need to try to impress these—these _things_—"

"Kate Argent kidnapped me," Malia says. Her voice is small, but getting stronger in increments. "She stuck me in a cage in Mexico and just left. These _things_ came to find me." Her voice catches. "Where wereyou?"

"Baby—"

"You must've noticed when I didn't come—come _home_," Malia says. "Did you even look for me?"

"Honey, you have to understand—"

"I do understand, Dad," Malia says. Her eyes are very bright, but her voice is even. "You know what I did. You know I—"

"Don't say it," Mr. Tate says, terror tight all through him.

"Why?" Malia says. "So you can keep pretending you think it was somebody else? So you can keep killing people? I—" Her voice shakes, breaks. "I did it, Dad. I shifted, and I killed them, and I didn't—"

"Malia, don't," Stiles says, so softly.

Malia shakes her head. "I didn't m-mean to but I did it, it was m-me, so if you're gonna kill anyone, then, then—" She spreads her arms wide, half surrender, half open target. "Then just—And they'll finally, they'll _fi_nally be—"

Mr. Tate drags himself to his feet, pulls something from his pocket—

But the pack is quicker, moving in unison, surrounding Malia, blocking her off.

Derek bares his teeth, roars.

The tree behind Kira sizzles.

"It's just a picture!" Mr. Tate says, holding his hands high above his head. "It's just a picture of—of your mom and I, and you—"

He limps closer, tries to reach her through the protective blockade.

"You wouldn't have hurt her," Mr. Tate says. "You never would've hurt them. You loved your sister."

"But I _did_," Malia says.

Her father closes his eyes.

"The monster did," he says. "It's dead now."

Malia doesn't say anything. Derek isn't sure she can.

"I killed the monster, baby," Mr. Tate says, still holding out the faded little picture. "I shot it dead. It's safe now."

"No, it's—"

"It's safe now. You can come home."

"You shot Kate Argent," Lydia corrects. "And she didn't die."

"I killed the monster," Mr. Tate repeats. There are tears in his eyes. He doesn't seem to hear Lydia at all. "I killed the thing that did this to us. I know it wasn't you."

"You would've killed all of us," Stiles says.

"You're the monster," Lydia says.

"No," Mr. Tate says, but he's shuddering, sinking to his knees, sobbing. "No, no, no, no..."

"_Daddy_," Malia says, and then she's darting between Derek and Lydia, rushing to his side.

"Be careful," Kira says worriedly.

"He won't hurt me," Malia says, but Derek thinks of Malia's shape, so still, speared by Mr. Tate's arrow, and he tenses, braces ready just in case.

But Mr. Tate doesn't look capable of hurting anyone right now. He's shaking his head, eyes squeezed shut, still begging, _No, no, no, no_...

And Derek thinks of the emptiness, the sudden crushing weight, and knowing it was him, all him, that Peter and Kate might've played their parts but Derek is the one who really _broke _all of it—

And he thinks he might understand the look of absolute loss, the wave of absolute denial rocking all through Mr. Tate.

"I'm sorry," Malia says, hugging her father. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, _Daddy_—"

"I don't know what to say," Kira says quietly. "I never know what to say."

"There isn't anything," Derek says. "Not really. It's just—words."

"Just be there," Stiles says.

When Stiles' father shows up with handcuffs, Mr. Tate lets himself be led away.

* * *

Derek hears Cora and Braeden before he sees them. He's not eavesdropping, exactly. He's—waiting for his sister.

"—but you have Derek now," Braeden says.

"He's my family," Cora says. Her voice is muffled slightly, like Kate's against Derek's chest all those billions of centuries ago, that whole lifetime ago. "He's not my pack," Cora continues, and Derek stops listening. White-noise waves crash over him, deafen him.

Of course he isn't. Of course she—she's been looking out for him, she feels obligated maybe, probably because he's a weak little kid now, but she doesn't actually—

It's okay. Derek understands.

As long as she's okay, as long as, as long—

He feels sick, lightheaded.

So, so alone.

"You never said we were pack," Braeden says, faintly, very far away.

"Of course we are," Cora says fiercely.

"Well you've never _said _it."

"We are," Cora says. "We are. You and me. Just like it's always been."

Derek just starts walking, eyes stinging, throat thick with unbreathable air.

* * *

He walks in circles. There's nowhere to go, nowhere pulling him home, no connection to anything. He just walks, because he can't stand still, and running—running would just make it worse. It's a small town and there's nothing left here for him, but there's nothing outside it, either. There's just nothing.

Laura's buried somewhere here. That's—that's something. If he could figure out where, he'd have something, at least. Some actual root here, something tying him down to something. He's terrifyingly unmoored, too exhausted for anger, but his old anchor was family and they're all—they're all—

He feels sick, but he isn't. He doesn't let himself let it out. Control, he's in control of his own stupid body. That much of it, at least.

He swallows hard, eyes streaming, and keeps walking.

* * *

He ends up right back where he started, lurking yards from where Stiles and Lydia and Kira are clustered around Malia. It's not his pack. It's not his anything. He's not even supposed to be here. He's older than them, he keeps forgetting. They're teenagers and he's—he's—useless. Pointless. Homeless, but that's okay. That's okay. He can—he can go back to the apartment, spray it up with chemicals till he chokes, till there's not a trace of Kate anywhere in it.

He could, he could do that.

He just can't actually bring himself to move in that direction.

* * *

Scott comes back with Deaton way too late. Malia's father is long gone. But his pack is here. His pack is here, he has that. Gathered together, just waiting for him. Any second now they're gonna look up and see him and the pack pull in his chest will make the whole world seem manageable.

Derek is so jealous he could cry.

"Scott," Kira says, and Derek turns around. He can't watch them, can't watch this anymore.

But then there are footsteps behind him, a shadow falling past his feet, and then warm light pressure all along his side, an arm looped loose across his shoulders.

It hits Derek like the first rush of air after a dive so deep you think you might never come up at all.

"Hey," Stiles says. "Where'd you go?"

* * *

"What kind of bobcat was that, anyway?" Stiles says at the clinic. Derek hasn't really been paying attention to the conversation. It's just a conversation, and his head is buzzing, and his chest feels tight, but different than before. Stiles is still a constant presence at Derek's side, just—being Stiles, like it's nothing, like he wants to be here or he'd go sit somewhere else, put his arm around someone else.

_You think I wanted to touch him?_ Kate says in Derek's head. His skin crawls.

"I've never seen an all black one before," Stiles is saying. Derek forces himself to focus, to breathe.

"You've seen a lot of other bobcats?" Scott asks.

"On _TV_," Stiles says.

"It's a melanistic bobcat," Lydia says. "They're rare, but not unheard of."

"Not by you, anyway," Stiles says. "Is there anything you _don't_ know?"

"Pi past a thousand places," Lydia says immediately. "What came before the Big Bang. When I'm going to die."

"You know what? That's somehow comforting," Stiles says. "Especially the last part. Do you think you, y'know, _will_?"

"I don't know that either," Lydia says.

* * *

Cora comes back wearing Braeden's leather jacket. Her mouth is still stained bloody.

So is Braeden's.

They're still holding hands. Braeden's fingers keep spilling sparks.

_Oh_, Derek thinks.

Their talk hadn't been about him at all.

* * *

Derek goes back to the Stilinskis' for dinner. Takes the couch. Stiles looks like he might protest, but instead gets Derek sheets, pillows.

"You don't have to—" Derek says. He's done enough, more than enough.

"Stop saying that," Stiles says. That same look on his face as the almost-fight outside the clinic, not quite angry but—something.

Derek stops.

* * *

It's still dark when he wakes up, drenched in cold sweat under the thin blanket Stiles gave him. He watches a cockroach scurry under the couch, unreachable, and closes his eyes again.

_You think I wanted to touch him?_ Kate says in his head. Derek tenses, bites back bile.

_Shut up_, he snaps at himself.

He closes his eyes, tries to force sleep back over him until the morning.

Stiffens.

There's something wrong. There's something really wrong, impossibly wrong, because he's in the Stilinski living room. He's in the Stilinski living room, on the Stilinski couch.

So why can he smell _Kate_?


	13. Chapter 13

Panic pulls Derek forward so quickly he stumbles over Stiles' doorway.

Stiles, he says, but his voice isn't working; it doesn't matter. He shakes him awake, loops Stiles' arm over his shoulders, starts dragging him outside.

"Der'k, wha—" Stiles starts. His pillow's left indentations on his cheek. "Wha's goin' on?" he asks outside, voice rough with sleep, but Derek's already racing back inside for Stiles' father.

He speeds through the house till he's dizzy, till Stiles intercepts him with a hand on his arm.

"Derek—"

"I can't find your dad," Derek says. His head is spinning. He can't, he can't screw this up again, not _again_—

"He's at work," Stiles says, shivering slightly in boxers and a faded blue t-shirt. His hair is rumpled, sticking up on one side. "He's got a late shift, Derek. He's fine. Everything's fine."

Derek lets out a long, shaky breath. Stiles pats him on the back a few times, keeps his hand there.

"Kate was here," Derek says. Just saying it sends a new chill through him.

_You lit a match_.

"What?" Stiles says, brushing sleep from the corners of his eyes.

"She was here," Derek says. "I—I tracked her scent."

"Her scent?" Stiles repeats. "From where?"

"Your couch."

"My—" Stiles stops, looks at him. He's suddenly wide awake. "And you thought—God, Derek."

But his voice is muffled by Derek's shoulder, arms tight around him.

"She's gone," Stiles swears, low, by Derek's ear. "She's more than gone. Braeden blew her up. It's over."

"What if she isn't?" Derek asks. He can feel her so sharply behind him. Watching him.

Laughing and laughing and laughing.

_You think I wanted to touch him_?

He shudders, tries to shrug her away.

"I'm off, I'm off," Stiles says, holding his hands up.

No, not— Derek says.

But his voice isn't working again.

* * *

Stiles' dad does the full sweep when he gets home, and Derek tries not to feel like a kid making his father check the closet for monsters when the search comes up clean. Obviously she's not just _hiding _somewhere, but that doesn't mean she wasn't here. That doesn't mean she didn't do something, start something, leave something, something that's gonna blow up in all their faces any minute now. And Stiles' father is human. He sees differently, smells differently, what if he just doesn't _notice_—And Derek misses it because he's an idiot, and everything and everyone is just destroyed because he didn't, because he couldn't—

"Hey," Stiles says, and touches Derek lightly on the arm. "She's gone. I swear. Nothing's gonna happen to us, okay?"

Derek just looks at him, at his wide-open face, his eyes so soft and serious. His hair is still sticking up on one side.

He catches Derek looking, licks his lip nervously. Derek looks away.

Means to look away.

* * *

Derek isn't getting older.

He'd thought, after—if Kate's gone, shouldn't her spell be gone too? Shouldn't he be himself again, whatever that is, whoever that is? Everyone must be getting sick of this, of looking out for him like this. Derek's sick of himself, of not knowing things he should've known a long time ago, of how he's not what—Even if there is something, or was, he's not—He doesn't look right, he doesn't know what anything means. He's the wrong version of himself, and the other one—He's seen that picture, the other one's—huge, and probably—even if someone liked him, or, or could, it's not him. It's _that_ him, that huge him that Derek can't reach, can't become, not for years and years, maybe not at all. And meanwhile there's—other people, and they're better than the him he is now, and—

It's stupid. It's stupid to even think about.

Derek can't stop thinking about it.

* * *

There's no DNA tying Mr. Tate to the bodies, there's nothing. Stiles' father can't fight his lawyer. He gets to go home like nothing ever happened.

Malia doesn't live with him anymore. Lydia's parents are divorced and her father lives with his Miss Teen Massachusetts girlfriend and her mother is never home and Malia would be doing her a favor, so Malia's doing her a favor.

Stiles tries, but Malia doesn't want to talk about it. Not to him. She talks to Lydia, to Scott, to Cora, even, but with Stiles she's—guarded, introspective. Cautious, maybe. Derek doesn't understand it, but that doesn't matter. Derek doesn't know anything about anything. Not this version of him.

Braeden's bobcat goes everywhere with her now, fading into shadow around people, growing back into itself when they're gone. It won't leave Cora's side for anything.

Neither will Braeden.

Cora wears her jacket like a medal around her neck, like she had to fight for it, like she won. If Derek was older, he'd tease her about it, but the way things are, he doesn't have a right. She's fallen into what was always going to be Laura's role, the one Cora always wanted: Her own pack, her own rules. Derek's packless, homeless, useless. There's nothing he can say to anybody.

* * *

Things settle, even though they shouldn't, even though Derek knows nothing's over. Kate's still out there, and Mr. Tate's still out there, and it's too easy. It's too easy, and it's too quiet, and Derek doesn't know what to do with himself. Where to go, what to say.

He doesn't go anywhere. He doesn't say anything.

He watches. Just making sure there isn't—Just making sure. He checks the house before Stiles goes in, stays up keeping guard, tells himself he isn't just finding some way to matter, somehow, some reason to be there.

Kate's still out there. She's not just gonna leave him alone. She's not just gonna leave his family—leave this family alone.

They're not his family. They're not his anything. Nothing is.

He has to remember that.

* * *

Things settle and stay settled. Stiles goes to school with Scott and Malia and the rest of Scott's pack, Scott goes to work at the clinic four nights a week, the pack watches movies and gets popcorn between the cushions. Derek watches, and lurks, and gets the popcorn out again, and tries to pretend there's a point to him. Stiles finds his side, drags him into the middle of things, but it's obvious, it's obvious. He's trying too hard, and Derek doesn't belong here.

Stiles still tries to hold Malia's hand, and he still sits with her at lunch, passes his chips over to her without even opening the bag. He buys her flowers, he does everything.

Sometimes she watches him when he's not looking, and sometimes he watches her, scratches at his eye and ducks his head and Derek has to go do—something.

Sometimes Stiles comes after him, tries to urge him back, but Derek's not what he wants, can't be. Not the way he is now. Maybe not at all.

Stiles is just being nice. He's just too nice, and Derek doesn't deserve it.

* * *

Cora and Braeden leave town together, Braeden's bobcat following them like a shadow. Cora gives Derek a new phone, her number and Braeden's as contacts one and two.

"_Call_ me," Cora says, and hugs him, hard. Derek holds on, holds himself still when she goes, tries not to feel like the last part of his anything is slipping away.

His fingers find the touchpad when she's gone. He almost considers it, just calling her.

_What happened? _

_You told me to call, idiot._

Maybe it could be easy, with her.

"Hey," Stiles says, and touches his arm.

Derek tucks the phone back in his pocket.

* * *

There's food.

There's always food, but Derek doesn't notice it much. He's never hungry, he's never—it's just there. It's just pointless.

Sometimes Stiles makes him eat something, looks at his plate and looks at him and looks—so serious, face soft and eyes—_I'm sorry, I should've told you, I should've just told you, Derek, I'm so_—and Derek eats something, till Stiles looks okay again. Sometimes all food, any food is sushi and matcha ice cream with Kate, with Kate all over, with him promising her _anything, anything._ Sometimes Derek can't breathe at all, thinks about keeping not breathing.

It doesn't matter. It shouldn't.

There's nothing for him here, he's nothing for anyone, there's nothing.

There's just—Stiles, and that look on his face.

So Derek eats, sometimes. So he breathes, and keeps breathing, and tries not to think about it.

Tries not to think about anything.

* * *

Peter comes back on a Wednesday.

Stiles is in school, and his father is at work, and Derek is just—wandering. He doesn't run, not anymore. He'd run out of road too quickly, and then what?

Start running without somewhere to go and all you're doing is running away. And once you start, you won't stop. You'll always be running.

Dad used to say that.

Malia offered Derek his jacket back, but he couldn't take it. It's January, almost February now, and the wind bites into him, but he needs that. He can't just put on Dad's jacket and pretend things can still be okay, pretend this howling emptiness in him isn't all his mistakes echoing back at him. He can't watch movies, and talk so easily, and laugh, and fall back into this shape of someone who didn't destroy his family. He can't do that.

He's not gonna do that.

Peter comes back on a Wednesday, and he smells like alpha.

* * *

Derek's an omega, now. He knows that. Knows, in some old dutiful little kid place, that omegas can sense when an alpha is looking for a pack, that their wolves encourage it. The lone wolf dies, the pack survives, Derek knows this.

Peter tells him anyway.

Alphas can sense omegas too, but not just for packs, Omegas are easy kills, picking off the weak, an easy way to show strength, gain power. Derek knows all of this, too.

"But don't worry," Peter says. "As your alpha, let me reassure—"

"You're not my alpha," Derek says. "I don't have an alpha."

"That's right," Peter says, like he can't hear a word Derek is actually saying. "You're weak. An easy target. You need a protector."

"You killed Laura," Derek says. Anger curls back in him, heats him up until he's not sure how he didn't freeze to death without it. "I don't need you for anything."

"You don't mean that," Peter says lightly. He doesn't react to Laura's name at all. "You've always been—"

Derek punches him.

Once he starts he can't stop, can't breathe or see or think. All he is is two pummeling fists, and all Peter is is a tensed wall of muscle, and he stole Laura. He killed Laura just so he could be _this_, and now he wants Derek to be his beta, and Derek's always hated him but he's never hated him so much he wanted to claw him open, tear him apart, but _now_—

His hands stay human, curled into fists, and Peter stays a steady, unflinching target.

Derek draws back, opens his hand—

Peter grabs his wrist, twists hard. There's a crack, and a pop, and pain, but that doesn't matter, Derek can still—he's one fist and he can still—

But then there's a hand around his throat, squeezing tight, and Derek can't breathe at all, and fine, fine, fine, but his body gasps, chokes, eyes filling, and then it just—stops. Stops fighting, stops trying, finally just listens to Derek and—stops.

And then Peter lets go.

Something hits Derek hard in the back of the head, and then he's sliding down it, looking up at it dizzily, and it's a wall. There are fists, and claws, and more walls, or the same one, and Derek closes his eyes, surrenders to the pain pain pain pain pain all around him, lets it lull him off to wherever it wants him.

He doesn't have anywhere else to go.

* * *

He comes back, comes back to the pain still landing sharp and heavy, throbbing and pounding and stinging and knocking the air out of him and it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. There's blood in his mouth, spilling all down his throat, his ears are wet and ringing.

He's not moving at all.

He's not moving at all, but Peter drags him up, cups his jaw tight, hand heavy on his forehead, forcing his face up, his eyes open. He's so close Derek can taste his breath, taste the hungry rage pouring off him like steam.

"See?" Peter says. "If you had an alpha, this wouldn't happen."

"Bite me," Derek spits, or means to.

He chokes instead, swallows blood. The world spins.

Peter steps back, watches Derek's legs buckle under him. The floor hits him hard, knocks him down—or up, or—Derek can't think, anymore.

Peter just stands there, over him, watching. Derek can see him, the edge of him, can't help but breathe his scent with every thick bloody gasp. He's crumpled oddly, pain-soaked, blood shocking all through him. Or is it the other way around?

Peter doesn't move at all. His heartbeat thumps a steady ache against the back of Derek's head. Derek chokes, his breath rattling in his throat, and tries to—tries to—

"The offer still stands," Peter says, and stays over him, waiting.

Blood slides all down Derek's throat, fights to come up again. His neck is maybe broken, or maybe he just doesn't have one, anymore. Breathing is impossible, and so what? So what? Peter won't leave without an answer, and Derek's never going to give him what he wants. So it's an eventuality, so let's just get it over with.

Derek's body doesn't get it. It keeps choking. Keeps trying to breathe.

Derek's stupid body never listens to him anymore. His eyes keep watering, tears tracking all down his stupid sixteen-year-old face.

He'll probably be sixteen for the rest of his life.

Sixteen and an idiot who destroys everything, who doesn't know anything until it's too late, who keeps hearing Kate Argent in his head, who can't ever stop_ thinking_.

So what's the point? What's the fucking point?

Derek forces himself to curl sideways, where his limbs hang like dead weight on the rest of him, press down on his chest until breathing feels like being stabbed, over and over and over.

Until he doesn't feel Peter at all, because there isn't anything except a cloud of nothing, all around him.

Fucking _finally_.


	14. Chapter 14

But he heals, enough. Of course he does. Derek comes back to Peter gone, to darkness, to the taste of his own stale blood going tacky on his teeth. He drags himself sideways and chokes, vomits rivers of it.

Derek wipes his mouth, tries to remember how to breathe.

The skin over his ribs pulls tight, tighter, tighter, struggling to mend itself back together. The bones work slower, splinter trying to reach each other. His chest is shifting layers of gravel, shredding the muscle above it with every new breath, slicing his new skin open again, again, again.

He shoves himself to his knees, staggers, catches himself on raw palms. He gives the world a few seconds to rearrange itself steady, tries again. Grits his teeth, swipes at his eyes impatiently.

He's a werewolf. He'll heal. There's no point being a baby about it.

It's dark, but not quite night. Stiles' father probably isn't home from work yet. Stiles might still be at Scott's. That's good, that's—Good.

Derek just needs to—get cleaned up, get his head straight, and then he can find them. Check the house again, make sure.

This doesn't have to matter.

* * *

The lake is a bad idea. Derek's feeble as foam, and the ice water breaks him, changes his new-formed bones to fragile stalactites, buries him under a chill he can't claw his way up from.

His wolf gets sick of the stupid human trying to kill it and takes over. Derek's too cold, too empty to fight back.

He lets it run, lets it drag him through the depths and back up again, rust trails swirling in the water all around him. Lets it bite back against the biting cold, dive deep under the ice and come up howling, shaking out fur matted with still-drying blood.

It's almost a relief, letting go. Being led. Just following, just swallowing water and still breathing because he isn't in charge of keeping himself afloat anymore.

Derek lets his wolf cage him in his chest, kept safe under layers of instinct and need. Wolves don't think at all, they just act. They just survive.

He should have done this from the beginning.

* * *

The wolf that once called itself Derek has the wrong shaped body for a wolf, but the still-sinking Derek part knows his body is the wrong shape for everything, now. The wolf barely cares. It stretches to fill every inch of itself, joints cracking as it learns its new shape.

It doesn't mind the blood on its teeth. It dives back under the ice, swims for miles. The cold is clarity, power against the sharp lances of pain still running through it. The air is fresh fire through its veins when it raises its head again, grins too wide.

It holds its human very still, breathes deep and sharp and even, and dives under again.

* * *

The water is the best place for a wrong-shaped wolf, where man and beast move mostly the same. The wolf knows this, somehow. Maybe its human is still giving some direction somewhere.

Torn flesh knits together clean. New bones form smooth as polished stones. Old blood swirls away into nothing. The wolf breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

The stories, the sayings are all wrong. The lone wolf survives.

Under everything, it's still a wolf.

* * *

Werewolves read the darkness like a map, seek out the slightest shade of moonlight. The night over the wolf is blue-black and cold. Its fur stands on edge. There isn't enough of it, but this wolf has dealt with worse conditions than a confusing shape and a few bald patches. It isn't searching for a mate. It isn't fighting to keep in line with a pack. It's a lone wolf, so it's fine. It's fine, fine, fine.

Fine is a very human word. The wolf is content.

Its human barely struggles under its skin.

* * *

The wolf tests out its new throat. The roar shakes the trees and echoes back.

Names the wolf shouldn't know come with the sounds. The wolf pushes this away.

It rises from the water, picks fibers from under its new flesh. The moon hangs in the night, a Cheshire cat's sharp slice of teeth. The wolf grins back.

The night is very young, and the world is new and full, and the wolf is hungry.

* * *

The fight comes to the wolf all at once: an alpha, young, hesitant, approaching too slowly. Behind it, a coyote, a fox, two humans. An ambush. The human in the wolf's chest is saying something, struggling again, but the wolf ignores it. He rears up on his hind legs, roars.

The alpha backs away, spreads his arms wide in front of the others.

The wolf grins sharp. Gets ready to charge.

His human is screaming.

His claws comes out. The alpha roars.

He's not the wolf's alpha. His roar is barely a challenge.

The wolf braces against the tight-packed dirt.

"He's feral," the coyote—Malia—the _coyote_ says. "The wolf's in control now."

The wolf doesn't know human names. Words are for thinking things, for the weak. A wolf would never lay down and die to hide from words.

"No," Stiles says. "He's _hurt._"

The wolf looks up.

"Derek?" Stiles says, and steps forward.

In the wolf's chest, something grows claws.

* * *

"_Derek?_"

Derek's never heard Stiles like this, his voice strangled, pitchy with panic.

For just a second, his wolf stills.

A second is all Derek needs.

He forces his wolf down like thrashing back to the surface, looks out through his own clear eyes again. Stiles is feet away, watching him, his hands outstretched.

Half-reaching, half catching.

"Stiles," Derek says. At first the word won't come at all, and then it's everything. Heavy on his throat, light on his tongue, harsh and desperate, easy as breathing.

Stiles' hands find his shoulders just before he stumbles.

"You shouldn't've done that," Derek says, when he can say anything but those two syllables, over and over and over like a prayer.

"Yeah?" Stiles says. "Holy god, Derek, what happened to you?"

His hands map out the worst of Derek's remaining wounds. His face—Derek's never seen it like this. His eyes are so bright with fire they're practically glowing.

"I—" Derek says. "I got lost."

"Of course you did," Stiles says. "Look at you. You're barely _held together_."

Derek's world is still spinning, his ears are still ringing, the back of his head is a thousand uncoordinated gears trying to scrape into machinery, but he's healing. He's healing, he'll heal, that's not an _excuse_—

Stiles shouldn't trust him like that. No one should trust him like that, no one should trust Derek at all. No one should be—be running in front of a wild wolf, he could've—

"I could've—" Derek can't stop shaking. "I could've h-hurt you, I could've—"

"No," Stiles says. His arms come up around Derek, close him in warm against his chest. "No, you couldn't. Fuck, Derek, you need a doctor. A _hospital_."

"'m fine," Derek says, but he sounds like death, sounds like he's still dying. He clears his throat, squeezes his eyes shut when they threaten to water. His wolf is still fighting, still snarling inside him.

"Derek," Stiles says, but now it's so soft. Light fingers find the back of Derek's skull, explore the still-healing tender patches so carefully. Stiles' hand cups his jaw. Derek winces.

Stiles' hands disappear in an instant.

Derek takes his palm, drags it against his shoulder. Shivers, holds it there.

"You're not gonna break me," he says.

The hug is loose but full of Stiles, full of apology, just full. There's a horrible wetness to Stiles' voice when he tries speaking again. He's suddenly hoarse.

"What happened?" Stiles asks, but before Derek can answer, Stiles says, "_Who_? I'm gonna kill them."

"It was—It's nothing," Derek says. Stiles lets out a soft sobbish sound, stares at him. "It's worse than it looks," Derek says, before realizing that isn't right at all. "I mean. It looks worse than it is. I'm fine."

"I'm gonna kill them," Stiles swears again. "I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a baseball bat—You know what? I'll take a fucking wolfsbane chainsaw if I have to. It was a werewolf, right?"

"It doesn't matter," Derek tries. He's never seen Stiles this angry.

"It matters," Stiles snaps. "You matter. Stop fucking acting like—like you're disposable."

"Okay," Derek says, just to get that look off Stiles' face.

"Good," Stiles says.

He holds Derek together until Scott says, "Maybe—my mom—"

"Right," Stiles says, nodding, and unwinds from around Derek, but his arm hooks under Derek's almost before Derek can miss him, keeps him upright, secure against his side. "Right, yeah." He turns to Derek. There are tear tracks all down his face. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah," Derek says. "I'm fine."

"Someone cut your fucking head open," Stiles snaps. "If you were human you'd be dead."

"I'm not human," Derek says.

Stiles just looks at him. Just pulls him a little closer against his side.

"Yeah, well," he says. "I don't care."

* * *

"Don't fucking scare us like that again," Stiles says, after a while. Scott's pack is all around them like a guard rail, but Derek barely sees them at all.

A lead weight thumps heavy against Derek's chest. His eyes burn. "I'm sorry—"

"_No_," Stiles interrupts. "You should've called. Howled, or—Scott would've heard you. We would've come."

"I'm not part of your pack," Derek says, somehow, over the lump in his throat.

"Yeah you fucking are," Stiles says.

* * *

Lydia had screamed, lead them all to the middle of nowhere, two blood-smeared walls and a gore-washed floor. Stiles was sure it was more than one again. There's no way one person has that much blood in them.

But there weren't any bodies, there wasn't anything, and then Scott caught a scent under the copper and went quiet. Didn't want to tell Stiles what it was, just started following it.

They ended up at the lake, edge washed bloody, and Scott said, quietly, "Stiles..."

And then they heard the howl.

* * *

Lydia won't stop staring at him.

She doesn't say anything, she just—stares. Her gaze is impressive, eye-watering.

"What?" Derek says, finally.

"It's her first real rescue," Stiles says. "Kind of a big milestone."

They're at the McCall's, Derek all set up in the guest bedroom. The back of his head is still bleeding a little. He doesn't need to ruin these nice white sheets, but no one else seems to care at all.

Stiles is focused on the bleeding, running his fingers, careful, under Derek's hair. Derek closes his eyes.

"Whoa, whoa whoa whoa!" Stiles says, grabbing his shoulder. "You are not falling asleep. You probably have a concussion, or _six_. Keep those pretty peepers open."

"I'm a werewolf," Derek reminds him. His ears heat a little. He tries to ignore it. "I'm in a bed."

"For _support purposes only_," Stiles clarifies. "C'mon, dude, what do I have to do to keep you awake?"

A lot of really unhelpful suggestions pop into Derek's head at once. He pushes them away, blushing harder.

"Stiles," Malia says. "I think we should break up."

* * *

Stiles turns, looks at her. Derek misses his fingers immediately.

"What?"

"We should break up," Malia says. "See other people."

"Other people," Stiles repeats. "Who else do you wanna see?"

"And the world," Malia says.

"Other people and the world," Stiles says. The news doesn't seem to have caught up to his face, which obviously thinks this is some kind of long set up to a punchline. "Where in the world, specifically?"

"You're a really great guy," Malia says.

"Oh," Stiles says. "Well that's fine then. Do you want to maybe give me a straight answer at some point?"

"There's just a lot going on in my life right now," Malia says.

"Is there?" Stiles asks. "Me too! We should go out, maybe talk about it."

"I don't want to be with you anymore," Malia says.

"Now you're just lying," Stiles says, but his face crumples.

"Well I can't," Malia says.

"Can't," Stiles says tightly. "Why not."

"Because you're in love with somebody else, obviously," Lydia says.

* * *

"Okay, all points bulletin?" Stiles says. He's talking very fast, his tone very sharp. Derek's stomach hurts. "I am over you. Completely. Like, for months."

"Not _me_," Lydia says, rolling her eyes.

"Well then who?" Stiles snaps.

Derek has to go. Derek has to go do—something, has to go do something somewhere not here. Now.

"Where are you going?" Stiles demands, getting in his way. "What, are you dumping me too? I know I'm not your _pack_—"

"You are," Derek says. It's undeniable, it's—it shouldn't make sense, doesn't, but it's true.

"Yeah," Stiles says. His eyes are very bright. "Yeah, sure, till the next time you go off and get yourself _killed_—"

"That was stupid," Derek says. "I wasn't—I didn't think."

"Yeah, no shit," Stiles says. "I was wrong, okay? I was wrong."

"I don't—" Derek says.

"You're exactly like him," Stiles says. "You are him. There's nothing different about you."

It's obviously a lie. Derek's small, young, weak like this. Stupid. He's useless, he's nothing—

But Stiles really believes it.

And Derek, Derek—

Derek kisses him.


	15. Chapter 15

It's terrifying, terrifying when Stiles goes still against him. The whole world seems to rise up, tower over Derek, laughing.

_You think I wanted to touch him?_

But Stiles catches Derek by the arms, wraps them over his shoulders, says, "Whoa, whoa, hold on to me. Just hold on to me, okay?" so whatever Derek's done, it can't be that bad. Stiles' arms caging all around him, Stiles' heartbeat like a metronome on speed against his. Stiles' lips—oh.

Stiles' lips at his ear. "I want to, okay? I just—You're bleeding."

"You pass out at the sight of blood?" Derek manages. He almost manages to hide the misery of it, of Kate's voice in his head, making him feel like an idiot for thinking—for hoping—

"No," Stiles says, "but I'm not gonna jump you when you're leaking brain matter. I think that kinda might be an indication that maybe, I don't know, something's _wrong_."

"When I'm—" Derek reaches up. Stiles' hand is already there, holding a balled up towel to the back of his head, and how the fuck didn't Derek feel any of that?

"The fact that this is all news to you? That's kind of my main concern right now," Stiles says, but he says it softly, even as he eases Derek back to the bed, keeps his hand by the wound Derek can't feel anymore.

Malia's gone for Melissa. Melissa is Scott's mother. Stiles seems nervous that Derek doesn't know any of this already, but he doesn't say anything about it. He just sits by the bed, securing the towel with one hand, finding Derek's with the other.

"So," he says, lightly. "I was starting to think I'd made it all up in my head."

"Made what up?" Derek says. The world is spinning gently. He doesn't really mind. Stiles keeps him anchored, keeps his wolf curled around itself in him, barely keening.

"Us," Stiles says. His eyes are worried, but there's a fond little smile stuck in the corner of his mouth.

"Us," Derek says, his whole heart seizing up at once. "We already—"

"Kissed? Not exactly," Stiles says. "Kinda the reason I thought maybe I was, I don't know, projecting."

"Projecting," Derek says, a little awed, because that means—

"We kind of saved each other's lives a bunch of times," Stiles says, like that isn't the most incredible thing Derek's ever heard. "And there was the, you know, wall stuff."

"Wall stuff," Derek says, and he's never going to be able to say anything except parts of what Stiles is saying, and his heart is so full he thinks it might burst any second. The whole room is softer than it should be, gravity lower, only Stiles' hands keeping him from floating away.

"Yeah, we—" Stiles says, but he cuts off when Scott's mom—Melissa—appears.

"I'm fine," Derek tries, but she raises her eyebrows, says, "It looks like you've lost a lot of blood there. I don't know how good werewolf healing is, but I don't think you're immune to a brain injury."

"A brain injury," Stiles says faintly. His grip on Derek's hand gets tighter.

"Are you having any trouble breathing?" Melissa asks, and—oh.

"Um," Derek says, and looks at Stiles, who is white-faced and wide-eyed, and looks like he's struggling to breathe himself. "No, it's—"

"My mom just wants to help," Scott says from the doorway. "Just tell her the truth."

"Maybe a little," Derek admits. The spinning picks up speed. "But it's—It's probably nothing."

"Oh, great, 'probably,'" Stiles says. "Yeah, sounds like we should all just go home. What's the worst thing that could happen? Y'know, besides _death_."

"Stiles," Scott says, and Stiles looks at him, and then he ducks his head, scratches at his eye, and Derek says, desperately, "I'm _fine—_"

The lie might've worked if Derek didn't punctuate it by passing out.

* * *

"'Fine,'" Stiles says, voice distant but rushing closer without moving at all. "His pain made _Scott_ lightheaded, but apparently he's 'fine.' What exactly does _not_ fine feel like in Derekworld?"

"He'll be okay," Scott says.

"Yeah, like I'm gonna believe that now!"

"He'll probably be okay," Lydia says.

"Is that supposed to be reassuring?" Stiles snaps. "Because it really isn't. At all."

"Mom's not gonna let him die," Scott says, which sets Stiles off worst of all.

"Someone did this. Someone _did_ this to him." There's a sound like pacing, Stiles' voice oscillating all around Derek. "I'm gonna kill them. I'm gonna tear their fucking face off, andandand pour wolfsbane down their face-hole, and then I'm gonna—"

"Stiles," Scott says quietly, and the movement stops. When Stiles speaks again, the words are low, muffled.

"It's because he's an omega, isn't it. They're—they're easy targets."

"Maybe," Scott says. "But he doesn't want me as an alpha."

"Fine," Stiles says. "What about me?"

"You?"

"He said I was pack," Stiles says. "Just before he—just before he kissed me. Cora and Braeden are pack, right? Well how is she an alpha? Braeden's not her beta, they're equals. But they're not omegas, no one's gonna fuck with them, pick them off for fucking _sport_—" He takes a deep, shaky breath, and Derek just knows Stiles is watching him. He tries to move, open his eyes, anything, but his body won't take direction. "So what about me?"

"So when he's hurt, he'll howl for you?" Lydia says. "Great plan."

"No," Stiles snaps. "He'll howl for our pack."

Derek can practically hear Lydia raising her eyebrows.

"Scott doesn't have to be his alpha, okay? He can be, like, his alpha-_in-law_."

"You wanna get werewolf hitched to Derek," Lydia says.

"If it'll keep him safe, why the hell not?" Stiles says. "It's not like I can't stand the guy."

"You're seventeen," Lydia says. "He's sixteen. You haven't even kissed him back yet."

"Yeah, well, I will," Stiles says. "And it's gonna be awesome."

Derek really needs to open his eyes now. See the look on Stiles' face, so he can lock it in his memory, forever. So he can pull it out any time Kate's stupid voice comes back. But he can't make his body listen. He might as well be buried alive, listening to his eulogy.

"I just really," Stiles says, and his voice shakes. "I just really need him to be okay."

I'm fine, Derek starts to say, before remembering exactly how much he isn't. Guilt comes heavy, crashes into him, pins him down under it.

"Something's happening," Scott says.

Derek just knows when Stiles goes still. "What? Is it bad?" He's really close, maybe touching Derek by now. Derek really hates that he can't feel anything.

"I don't know," Scott says. "His heart's just beating really fast."

"Fast," Stiles says. "Like a heart attack? Scott, tell me he's not having a heart attack."

Scott doesn't say anything.

"He healed Cora," Stiles says. "When, when she had that head thing, he gave up being alpha for her. It's time she freakin' returned the favor."

"We don't even know where she is."

"Yeah, well she does," Stiles says. "And we have her number, and Braeden's, they can postpone their honeymoon long enough to make sure he doesn't_ die_—"

And then Derek's gone again.

* * *

When he comes back, tiny traces of light are filtering through his eyelids, and he can smell Stiles and his father, sweat and exhaustion and tears and _packpackpack,_ before he hears them.

"—but it's also a school night."

Stiles gapes noisily. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, Stiles, I actually—"

"Derek could be _dying_—"

"Melissa's doing everything she can to help him. That's her job. You need to do yours."

"My job," Stiles says. "Yeah, you'd know about putting your job first."

"I'm sorry?" Stiles' father says tightly.

"You just left her," Stiles says. "You didn't even say goodbye. I was there, but you were—you were—"

"Stiles," his father says, so quietly. Sadness swirls all around him like fog. But Stiles isn't listening anymore.

"And now you want me to just leave too?" He scoffs darkly. "Forget it."

Derek almost thinks he can feel Stiles' fingers, light, on his.

* * *

Pure sunlight hits Derek's eyes, blinds him. He's surrounded by pain. He is pain, there's nothing else about him. Every inch of him is screaming—he's screaming—

"_Derek!_" The whole world screams back at him. How are his ears not bursting from the pressure? "_Derek, hey, what's wrong? What hurts?_"

"Loud," he manages. His own voice slams into him like a Mack truck.

"Sorry," Stiles whispers, loud as the ocean. "Sorry, sorry—Scott, can you—"

There's a hand on Derek's wrist, a thin layer of pain stripping away, and Stiles going, "Shit, that bad?"

"Shhh," Scott moans.

And then Stiles' hand is on Derek's, and he's murmuring, "Hey, just hold on to me. Just hold on to me, okay? Like—like a stress ball."

Derek looks at him through his eyelashes. He's very bright, almost glowing, but not painful to look at.

"You know I have super-strength, right?"

"You're not gonna break me," Stiles says, and he's sure, and he's not letting go of Derek's hand, and Derek doesn't want him to.

Derek doesn't break him. He holds his hand human-tight and breathes, breathes, breathes through it. Focuses on Stiles until the pain is background static, until his eyes are full for an entirely different reason.

When it comes back Stiles hugs him, climbs onto the bed and lies beside him, their sides just touching. Hands still gripped tight.

Stiles falls asleep with his head against Derek's shoulder. It's the warmest feeling in the world.

Derek can't stop looking at him.

* * *

Malia gets a strange expression on her face when she sees them, fondness and sadness, love and loss. Lydia puts her arm around her, tries to take her outside.

"No," Malia says. "I have to ask Derek something."

Derek tenses.

"Did my father do this?" Malia asks.

Derek shakes his head quickly, regrets it immediately. He swipes at his eyes with his shoulder to keep from letting go of Stiles' hand. "No," he says, as loud as he can stomach.

"It's just—" Malia says uncertainly. "Who was it? Because Kate's gone, and my father ha-hates us. What we are. And he called you a murderer—"

"It wasn't him," Derek promises. "It was a werewolf."

"Just some werewolf," she says. She doesn't look like she believes him.

"Not your dad," Derek says. He already feels like he took something from her, put the new sad look in her eyes, but she waves it away.

"It was always going to be you," she says. "It's instinct."

Instinct and need and Stiles' head against Derek's shoulder, Malia's sad soft smile. If it wasn't the rightest thing in the world it wouldn't feel right at all.

* * *

Once Derek can talk without wincing at the sound of his own voice, everyone wants to know what happened. Stiles is desperate for answers, for a target. His father reminds Derek that his job allows him to use a gun about fifty times.

"And I've got some special bullets," he says. "Alan Deaton says wolfsbane if it's a werewolf, or silver for just about anything else, and if he's human..." Stiles' father makes a face. "Well, they're still bullets."

But Derek can't tell him. Can't risk them, can't do that.

_If you were human, you'd be dead._

Peter can't touch them. Peter can't go near them, and they can't know it was him.

It's over. And even if it isn't—Derek can settle this on his own.

He's not gonna let anyone else die for him.

* * *

When Melissa looks at Derek's wounds again, Derek swears it's fine, it's nothing, it looks worse than it is. It's just how werewolves fight, we can come harder because we heal. It just looks bad because it's an alpha, alpha wounds take longer—

"An alpha," Melissa says. "Not Scott—"

No, Derek says, no no no. Scott wouldn't.

"I thought it was normal for werewolves," Melissa says.

"For Hales, okay," Derek says, because he's an idiot.

* * *

"It really was nothing," Derek pleads, when Stiles hears. His dad's actually cleaning his gun in the kitchen, his jaw very tight. "I attacked him. He wanted to be my alpha and he killed Laura and I couldn't stop hitting him and he stopped me."

"He could've killed you," Stiles says. His eyes are very dark. Derek's sure that if he had a gun, he'd be cleaning it too.

"_Could've_," Derek says pointedly. "But he didn't. He just—"

"He crushed the back of your skull," Stiles says. "He broke your ribs and your wrist and, and I don't even _know_ what else because that's just what you didn't _heal_, and then he just _left_ you. I wanna feed him to a meat grinder."

"You can't go after him," Derek says. Panic rises in him, makes him tug Stiles closer against his side.

"Watch me," Stiles says, but he shuts up when he sees the look on Derek's face.

* * *

Cora offers to come back, tear Peter's throat out, give Derek the last cut so he can be alpha again. But Derek doesn't want to be an alpha. He doesn't want to be a beta. He just wants to be a person, not above or below. He's a pack-adjacent omega, and he's not alone. And that's all he wants to be.

Cora's in Managua with Braeden, and Derek refuses to pull her away. He's got one sister left. He's not gonna lose her too.

He's not gonna do that.

* * *

In the end, Peter comes to them. Tries to make an offer.

Derek's still healing. It's a long, painful process. Peter can take it all away.

"And you'd just do that," Stiles says, standing in front of Derek's bed like an armed guard.

"I'd do anything for my family," Peter says, and Derek wants to punch him again.

"Yeah, I've seen what your family looks like after you're done with them," Stiles snaps. "Twice now."

"I'm just extending an offer," Peter says calmly. "But if you prefer the pain..."

"That you _gave_ him," Stiles says. Peter looks at him like a bit of dirt on his shoe. Looks at Derek again.

"I am sorry," Peter says. "I was... overenthusiastic. The rush of alpha power running through you? It makes you do crazy things. Surely you remember, Derek. What you were like. When you were an alpha."

"Shut up," Stiles snarls. "He was nothing like you."

"How many betas did you lose again?" Peter says innocently. "All of them? All children, weren't they? And how many of the runners survived?"

Derek can't breathe.

"Don't listen to him," Scott says. "He's just trying to get in your head."

But Peter isn't lying.

"What'd I do?" Derek says. "What happened to them?"

"It wasn't your fault," Scott says.

And that is a lie.


	16. Chapter 16

"What'd I do?" Derek can't stop trembling. "What'd I do to them?"

Maybe he'd completely lost his mind. Maybe he'd killed them all himself.

No, no, no no no...

"Derek," Stiles says, so softly, and tries to take his hand. Derek pulls away, repulsed.

How can Stiles stand to touch him?

How can anyone?

"It wasn't your fault," Scott repeats, like he's trying to convince himself. His eyes are wide and sorry.

"Stop lying," Derek says. Stiles turns, stares at Scott.

"You're _lying_?"

"I don't—" Scott stops, frustrated. "I know you didn't mean to—"

"Shut up," Stiles snaps. "You're just making it worse." He turns back to Derek, says, "He's wrong, okay, it wasn't on you—"

"You killed Boyd with your own claws," Peter says calmly. "He'd tried to run with his love, Erica. They escaped and ran through the woods looking for a new pack to take them in. To... protect them. But you found them again."

"That's not what happened," Stiles says, but that's not completely true, either. "He's just twisting everything. The alpha pack _used_ you, and you tried to—C'mon, Derek, you can't trust him."

"And who can Derek trust?" Peter challenges. "You? The boy who framed him for murder? Twice, wasn't it?"

"That's—" Stiles says, but his eyes are heavy with guilt.

"We didn't know him yet," Scott says. "We didn't know who was doing it."

"But you knew it wasn't him," Peter says. "If not the first time, then certainly the second. And you named him anyway. To impress your Argent girlfriend."

_They're not all bad, _Stiles had said in the Jeep. _We just lost the best of them, though. _

_Her name was Allison. _

_She was Kate's niece. _

All at once, the pain comes back.

"We screwed up, okay?" Stiles says. "We've all screwed up. But we never meant to hurt you. _I_ never—"

"But you did hurt him," Peter says. "And you let Scott hurt him."

They're not denying any of it.

Pain lights Derek up, fades his senses to shadows of themselves. His eyes burn.

"We didn't just _hurt_ him!" Scott snaps. "There were reasons! We weren't just—"

"Reasons to force Derek to give Gerard Argent the Bite?" Peter asks. "Kate's father, the mastermind behind the fire that decimated our family? Derek begged you to stop. He was _terrified_. And you just held him down."

There are tears in Stiles' eyes, but Derek can't look at him anymore. His half-healed ribs press down on his lungs, make breathing impossible.

"It was a trick," Scott says uncertainly. "It made Gerard sick. It was supposed to kill him. Deaton—"

"But it didn't kill him," Peter says. "And neither did you. Though you've had _ample _opportunities."

This can't be happening again, not _again_...

Derek's head spins.

"But Derek didn't know it was a trick, did he?" Peter's still talking. He's never going to stop, not until Scott's pack stops trying to lie. And then Derek will have nothing, all over again.

"He genuinely thought he was going to die," Peter says. "That an Argent was going to kill him. Because you never bothered to let him in on your master plan. And why would you? You can barely stand him."

"That's not—" Scott says, but he stops. Even he can hear the lie now.

A sob lodges in Derek's throat, stays there. He presses his lips thin, clenches his jaw tight, tries not to breathe at all.

"He broke my arm," Scott says in a rush. "He never explained _anything_. He expected me to just trust him, listen to him, be his _brother_—" And there it is, for the third time in less than a month: The ugly truth. Derek's mouth is bloody with bitten-down protest. "I never wanted the Bite, and he expected me to be _grateful_—"

"Shut up, Scott," Stiles says. His eyes are wide with panic. "That's just what he wants you to say. You're giving him exactly what he wants. Just shut up!"

But Scott isn't listening.

"He turned _kids_," Scott says. He isn't even looking at Derek anymore. "Lonely kids, _desperate_ kids. Isaac was being abused, Boyd was alone, Erica was sick. They would have grabbed _anything _anyone offered them with both hands if it could fix that, and he made it sound _exciting_. He made it sound like they'd be invincible. He didn't tell them they would die, and watch their friends die, and be _hunted_—Erica thought she was gonna be his girlfriend. She was fifteen. She just wanted to drive, and stop having seizures, and not be bullied by the whole school for something she couldn't control. She thought she'd finally be powerful. Superhuman. And she didn't get to live to her next birthday."

"But there was one beta left, after everything," Peter says. "One standing survivor. Isaac Lahey. And where is he now?"

Scott goes quiet.

"Derek was reckless," Peter says. "Of course, he made mistakes."

No one bothers to deny that.

"And yes, his pack fell," Peter says. "But you were there beside him for all of it. You did everything you could to stand in his way. Because you never wanted Derek to be an alpha. Not yours, and and not anyone else's."

Derek stares at Scott, horrified, but Scott only sees Peter. Derek isn't even part of the discussion anymore. Maybe he never was.

"You always wanted to be the alpha, Scott," Peter says. "You only 'helped' Derek on the promise that you would be the one to kill me, and take it all. And when he didn't give you what you wanted... you did everything you could to tear his pack apart. You told his betas all the ways he'd failed them. All the ways _you_ would have warned them. Because he was selfish, you said. He was using them in a bid for power. But you were different. Scott McCall, the hero, the messiah... the _True Alpha_. Isn't that what you call yourself these days?"

Scott isn't even trying to argue anymore. His eyes are angry, jaw tight and defiant, but he knows it's true.

Derek's an idiot.

"And you succeeded," and oh, Peter is still talking. Maybe this will just go on forever. Maybe Derek really did die after all, and this is Hell. "Derek's last surviving beta became yours. And then what did you do with him? With poor, abused Isaac Lahey? Would you like to explain it to him?"

He waits.

"You threw him against a wall," Peter says, after a too-long silence makes it all too clear. "And then you did it again. Poor Isaac just took it. You'd made it clear you were still his best option. Until you sent him away, brokenhearted, with Kate Argent's brother."

"Is that true?" Derek says. He can't stop his voice shaking. "Did you let a hunter take my beta away? An _Argent_?"

Scott doesn't deny it.

Derek doesn't know how he does it with every part of him trembling, but he gets up, gets as far away from Scott as he can inside the claustrophobic little room. Still, he has to ask.

"Where are they?"

How can it keep getting worse? How can Derek be so fucking _stupid_? He'd taken for _granted_ that he could trust Scott.

Because Stiles trusts Scott.

How can he?

"You gave Derek's last beta to the family of hunters that burned ours alive," Peter says, and he's enjoying this, even solemn-faced, wide eyed, Derek can tell. He'll drag out this I told you so until Derek's numb from the beating. He'll make Derek beg to have him. Especially after yesterday, Derek hitting him and hitting him, so sure he had a better answer than joining Peter's pack.

He thought he had a new pack.

He thought he had a new _family_.

He's so fucking stupid.

"So you tell me, Scott," Peter says. "Why would my nephew trust you?"

Scott doesn't even open his mouth.

"And you, Stiles," Peter says when Stiles does open his mouth. Derek closes his eyes, tries to trap the fire behind them. Tries to control that tiny part of him, get that one thing right, at least. "You never lifted a finger to stop it. You never liked Isaac either. And you hated Derek."

It's the last punch in the gut that leaves Derek breathless. Stiles' heartbeat is going crazy. But all he says is, "Shut up. I love him."

And it's not a lie.

Derek almost manages to take a breath—

"And that's interesting, too," Peter says, and Derek's heart sinks. "You kissed Cora... Then on to Malia... And now Derek. Doesn't it seem odd that the best friend of Scott McCall, who has been working to destroy the last of the Hale pack since you first met him, is so… Hale-sexual?"

Stiles stops talking to Peter at all. He steps closer to Derek, tentative, like Derek's a deer he's trying not to spook, and his voice breaks when he says, "I really do love you, Derek." He takes a deep, shuddering breath. "You fucking _know_ I'm not lying."

"But you really do love Malia too, don't you," Peter says mockingly, and Derek hates him, but nowhere near the way he hates himself. "And over time, you could have come to _really love_ Cora."

"Not like this," Stiles says.

But his eyes flick over to Malia, apologetic, and Derek has heard enough. Seen enough.

He finds Peter's side.

"Derek, don't," Stiles begs. "Just—stop listening to him, c'mon, you know he isn't—"

But Peter isn't lying.

Derek may hate every word out of his mouth, but at least it's the truth.

"Stop." Stiles turns to Peter. Tears slip silently down his face, constant as breathing, almost too quick to see. "Please just leave him alone. Why do you even want him? What are you planning?"

_Why do you even want him?_

How does it keep hurting just as bad, every time?

"Isn't that what you want, Stiles?" Peter asks, and Derek hates how he has an answer for everything. How Stiles doesn't have a hope of explaining it all away, how it's so _obvious. _Derek hates himself for not figuring it out, again. For being so sure he was right, this time, finally. "The last of Derek's real pack gone, so you can replace it? You broke my nephew so slowly, so carefully, and then you rebuilt him again. Just the way you wanted him."

"You _killed Laura_," Stiles snarls, swiping at his eyes.

"Temporarily," Peter says.

"_Temporarily_?" Stiles says. "You're insane."

"I died too, you know," Peter says. "I let myself be killed. To test a theory. And now I know I was right."

"What are you talking about?" Scott asks.

Peter ignores him.

"They can all come back, Derek," he says softly. "We can bring them all back."


	17. Chapter 17

Derek doesn't dare let himself believe it. It's impossible. People can't just _come back_.

But Peter did.

If anyone could do it, if anyone had a way, wouldn't it be him?

Stiles shakes his head. "That's impossible." He looks at Derek, says desperately, "That was a lie, wasn't it? He's _lying_. He's just—planning something, and he's trying to string you along—"

"Was I lying, Derek?" Peter asks. "Am I lying now? We can bring them all back. Together. We can make the Hale pack whole again."

His heartbeat is steady and clear, and he knows it. He's already smiling faintly before Derek shakes his head, once.

"But—"

"What's the matter, _Stiles_?" Peter asks innocently. "Don't you want poor Derek to have his family back again? Or was that all just a lie, too. Maybe all you _really_ want is for Derek to be... _left alone_."

"Not like_ that_," Stiles snaps. "He's twisting everything, Derek, you know I wouldn't—"

"I don't think Derek knows you at all, Stiles," Peter says.

"But he knows_ you_," Stiles snarls. "You killed Laura. You got Paige killed. All you've ever _done_ is manipulate him, and and and _break_—"

"I gave Derek some advice he chose to take," Peter says. "What happened to Paige was tragic." His eyes go faraway. "Imagine the horror I felt, finding them. Poor, fragile Paige, frozen in Derek's arms. He wouldn't let go of the body for hours. He kept trying to warm her up again."

Derek shivers, stares down at his hands. He can still feel her last shudder of pain, hear the last little gasp—

Peter's cool palm settles on the back of Derek's neck.

"I made a mistake, Stiles," Peter says quietly. "I trusted a stranger over family. If I had only taken her to Talia..."

"Why didn't you?" Stiles asks. But he's not looking at Peter. He's watching Derek, eyes heavy and sad. At his sides, his hands are doing that thing again.

Half-reaching, half-catching.

"You and I may be more alike than you'd think, Derek," Peter says. "But we can't go back. We can only learn from our mistakes."

"Derek's only _mistake_ was taking your advice," Stiles says, eyes barely wavering from Derek's, and of _course_. Derek's staring back. Like a lovesick idiot. "Why did you even want Paige turned so bad? Why did you care?"

"'Why do you care?'" Peter echoes. "It's such an interesting question. One Cora just had to ask. She couldn't understand why you studied Derek's life so obsessively. Why you learned every inch of him. Almost like—"

"Like a guy with a crush?" Stiles says, breaking his gaze to raise his eyebrows at Peter. "Wow, you're a genius. Real eye for subtlety."

"Like it was research," Peter says. "Like Derek was one more monster you keep yourself up all hours of the night preparing to deal with. Just in case you had to."

It just keeps getting worse.

"But even the nogitsune who took up residence in your head didn't get this much attention," Peter says. "Derek was always... special."

"It wasn't _research_," Stiles snaps. He's not looking at Derek at all anymore, and his eyes are dark and flint-sharp. "I get a little obsessive when I like someone, okay? Ask Lydia. Actually, don't. I'm Prince freakin' Charming next to how you stalked her."

"Lydia brought me back," Peter says. "That kind of relationship is... special."

"Yeah, 'Very Special Episode: Beware Uncle Bad-touch' _special_," Stiles says. "You don't care about anyone but yourself, but we're supposed to buy you suddenly being this benevolent parental figure? You crushed the back of Derek's _skull._ He's _still _healing what you did to him. And he's supposed to think _we're _the bad guys?"

Why is Stiles still pretending he cares? Derek can't understand it. Scott stopped lying ages ago.

The worst part is, it feels like he isn't pretending. Even now, knowing everything, some part of Derek still trusts him.

It's _infuriating_.

Some part of Derek still wants to tear from Peter's side, run to Stiles, hold him until he stops—

Peter's hand tightens over the back of Derek's neck.

"What are you doing?" Stiles demands, panic arcing all through him. "If you hurt him again, I swear to God—"

There are bright new tears in his eyes.

And Derek, Derek—

Derek needs to get a grip on himself, _now_.

Peter isn't hurting Derek. Pain like a steady, uncompromising ache is lifting, fading. And he's not just pulling pain. Under the ache, old, stiff wounds are repairing quick as a time-lapse capture. Disappearing. Already, Derek isn't just healed in places.

He's unbroken.

And then there's just the ever-steady pressure on the back of Derek's skull. Peter puts both hands on Derek's head like he's receiving a blessing. When he pulls away, the pain is gone.

Peter's eyes flash blue.

Nothing hurts at all, but Derek is suddenly heavy with the weight of his new debt. If Peter's a beta again, if healing Derek is the reason his family can't come back—Derek didn't need that, humans heal slowly all the time, he can take the pain, the stiffness, he should have said it was fine—

But when Peter takes his hands off Derek, his eyes flash red. Derek hangs his head, breathes, breathes, breathes.

He's never been more relieved.

"You can stay here with Scott McCall, and let him tear the last of the Hales apart," Peter says. "Or we can restore the pack to what it always should have been."

Derek looks at Stiles one last time.

"Trust _family_, Derek," Peter says. "Don't make our old mistakes."

"We are your family," Stiles says. "We could be. I could—God, Derek, he's_ lying_! Just let me explain—"

But Derek can't listen to him anymore. Peter could've lost it all healing Derek. His eyes went _blue_.

That has to be real.

Which means Peter really can bring them all back. Derek really can undo all his mistakes, he can fix all of it.

He looks up at Peter and nods, once.

Peter smiles.

Presses his palm, heavy, on the back of Derek's neck.

* * *

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, just wait," Stiles says, blocking the door with his body, both arms stretched wide. Like Peter couldn't peel him from the wall if he wanted to. Like Derek—

No, Derek can't touch him. He doesn't trust himself that much. Already, his wolf is scrambling against the walls of its cage in protest, trying to take over again. Stiles is its anchor, and it won't let go, no matter what the human parts of him know now.

"Just wait, okay?" Stiles pleads. "My dad will be here soon, he can tell you—"

"Are you going to hold us here?" Peter says lightly. It's a cold, pale Us, not one Derek would have ever thought he'd choose to be part of, but this is bigger than Peter. This is the Us of the Hale pack.

And Stiles is standing in their way.

"Don't make me have to hurt you," Derek tells Stiles, and tries to sound like he could.

"You won't," Stiles says.

It's not smug, but he's so _sure_. He knows exactly how well he's twisted up Derek's head. Malia called it _instinct_.

Derek can't stand it.

"Try me," he says, as coolly as he can. He squares his jaw, straightens his spine, tries to become something like the other Derek, the one who must have known all of this already.

Stiles doesn't move.

Derek steps forward—

Scott shoves Stiles behind him, roaring, eyes flashing red. Derek's throat goes lava-hot and full of sharp things.

Stiles makes a show of fighting Scott's protective stance, trying to get out from behind him, reaching for Derek, but its a trick. It all has to be a trick. It's too clear now.

Derek barely looks back at all before following Peter out into the day.

* * *

He expects to break down. Expects to sob, maybe howl, to lose the little bit of control keeping him together.

Nothing happens.

* * *

"Tell me how it works," Derek says. His voice is unbelievably steady.

"Divine energy," Peter says, as if that explains anything.

"Divine energy."

"The Aztecs believed there was a finite amount of life force in the world," Peter says. "But they had methods to keep it replenished. My revival was based on those methods." He watches Derek for a moment. "Don't look so dead-eyed, Derek. You don't need Stiles. We can bring Paige back too. The girl with whom you should have had forever."

_You don't need Stiles._

Derek spends days turning it over in his head.

It's the first time he's heard Peter lie.

* * *

Peter's apartment is small and cluttered, nothing like Derek would have expected. It's almost as if he and Peter have switched apartments, as if older Derek's sprawling, cold, empty space should be Peter's, and this small, close to cozy place should be Derek's.

"It's always going to be Scott," Peter says, while Derek examines the spines of Peter's library. A thin film of dust comes away with his fingers. "Stiles will always choose_ Scott_. Scott will never be your brother, Derek. And Stiles will always be his."

Derek doesn't say anything.

Doesn't react at all.

* * *

There's only one bed, and no couch.

Derek lies on his back on the little porch and stares up at the moon.

* * *

Stiles is awake, huddled in on himself against his own bedroom wall, dark circles under red eyes staring hard at nothing. His hair is a mess.

He barely sees Derek walk past him.

And then...

His eyes flicker left and go wide, and a surge of relief fills the room around them, feels like finally breathing.

He stands, arms out, reaching-catching, and then he's all around Derek, hugging him hard, until Derek's wolf finally stops fighting, and Derek realizes he's been holding his breath.

"You _jackass_," Stiles says. "I thought you _believed_ him. I thought—"

The words catch in his throat.

It's a dream, so Derek can't speak. He just watches Stiles, watches the color come back to him. Watches him breathe.

His heartbeat is white water rapids going clear, calm, and he takes Derek with him.

"Did he hurt you again?" Stiles asks, and Derek has a vague notion of pain just before Stiles' hands burrow under Derek's henley, long fingers finding the delicate still-healing skin around Derek's wounds. The long sharp slashes he gave himself in his sleep, still half-healing. "He's sadistic," Stiles says, covering the torn skin with both hands, helping it knit back together under his wide palms. "He breaks everything just to break it. It's the only thing that means anything to him."

Derek really needs Stiles to _stop talking_. This can be okay if there are rules, if none of it is real, he can still have this, but he can't stay if Stiles keeps talking, and he knows he can't pull himself away.

"It was all lies, you know," Stiles says, lifting his hands slightly to see the progress. "He just leaves things out, so it _sounds_ like—"

Derek kisses him.

This is the Stiles who wouldn't leave, the Stiles who ran in front of Derek's feral wolf, this is the Stiles who wanted to tie Derek to his pack, to protect him. This is the Stiles who wasn't lying, who isn't laughing, right now, at how_ stupid_—

But Derek won't let that Stiles ruin this.

Stiles' mouth is soft and careful, then harsh and desperate, his hands roaming Derek's body, checking for new wounds, settling over the back of Derek's neck, claiming and reclaiming. His eyes are warm, flaming, amber into gold, dark at the edges. He watches Derek like he's afraid to close them.

Derek knows he's staring again, but that's okay. That's okay here.

He's so fucking stupid for holding on to this dream so tightly, but this is all he has. When it's over there will be Peter's apartment, Peter's plans, Peter's hand on the back of Derek's neck, and it doesn't fit like this does.

I— Derek almost says, but speaking is against the rules, so he catches it in his teeth, swallows it back. He kisses Stiles quiet again, doesn't say anything.

Doesn't let go for anything.

* * *

He wakes up alone on Peter's porch, Stiles' scent fading in the air all around him.

* * *

"Dad," Derek decides. He doesn't wait for whatever stupid, mocking comment Peter has in his throat. "Dad comes back first."

He needs someone with no ties to Peter at all. He needs someone he knows he can trust. He needs someone to tell him what to do. He needs to see if this can really work, if there's a point to hoping.

He needs his_ father_.

"I don't think you've fully thought this through," Peter says. Derek's eyes narrow. "We can bring them all back_ together_."

"You keep saying that," Derek says. He's tired of this, of Peter's long, melodramatic tones. His great sweeping sentences. Like Derek doesn't realize that underneath all of it, Peter never actually says _anything_. "But you're forgetting something."

Peter raises his eyebrows, waits.

"I may not trust them," Derek says, and _lie, lie,_ it's such a pathetically obvious _lie_. "But I don't trust you either." His voice goes steady, certain. "If you want my help, you'll show me how it works. You'll bring back my father."

Peter looks at him for a long time.

Then he says, "If you insist."


	18. Chapter 18

In Peter's bookcase, behind several significantly less dusty books, there's a wooden box with a triskele carved into the top. It's the kind of thing Mom would use—would have used—to hold jewelry. Derek can't imagine what it might be doing here, but he's done learning about his life from other people. He picks it up, opens it gingerly.

At first he's not sure what he's looking at, and then—

"Be careful with that," Peter says from behind him. Derek jerks to life, barely resisting the instinct to do a panicked spin. The claws leap from the box and scatter across the floor.

Derek sets the box down carefully and slowly turns to face Peter, expression as blank as possible.

"Your hands are shaking," Peter points out. Derek can just bet Peter's been watching him explore all this time and was just waiting for the perfect moment to scare the crap out of him.

He really hasn't changed at all.

"No shit," Derek says evenly. "Any reason you're keeping someone's claws in a box behind_ A Study In Being A Dick_?" Something horrifying occurs to him. "Are they _Malia's_?"

But they can't be. Derek saw her claws, saw what was left. They were ragged, destroyed. These are whole, practically perfect, just the faintest smell of ash.

"They're totems," Peter says, but Derek's already scrambling to gather them, put them back.

They're not just totems.

"They're Mom's," Derek says. He counts the claws, spills them back into the box carefully, and closes the lid. He can't believe he didn't know immediately, but—Mom is still more than claws to him. He's still got this desperate, stubborn idea that she's alive, somewhere. Or at least _whole_, or at least…

His hands _are_ shaking. He shoves them behind his back, fixes his face as stolid as he can.

"You're hiding my mother's claws," Derek says, somehow. "Why?"

"I don't need to tell you," Peter starts, in the tones of someone introducing a twelve part lecture, "that these aren't just claws. They're immensely powerful—"

"I know," Derek interrupts.

"So you know what could happen if they end up in the wrong… _hands_."

Derek rolls his eyes so hard he can practically hear Laura warning him they'll heal that way.

"I found them in two minutes," he says.

"I wasn't hiding them from you," Peter says. "They're yours now, after all."

Derek struggles to fight the sudden burning behind his eyes.

He doesn't want _claws_. He wants his mother.

"I know you want your mother back," Peter says kindly, or as close to kind as he can get. His version of empathy is worse than his patronizing speeches or smug judgment. It's like watching a snake try to emote. "We both want this to work. And those claws are the first step toward what we want."

"That's how you're going to do it?" Derek asks. "Plant them in a little pot, water twice a day?"

Peter looks irritated. It's a lot less eerie than his attempts at sincerity. "The Aztecs—"

"Right," Derek says. "Sprinkle with divine energy. Keep near sunlight."

"How do you think I came back?" Peter asks. "A totem, an anchor, and an energy source. The Aztecs may have been primitive, but in this case... they were right."

"So your totem was—"

"My body, of course," Peter says. "My anchor was—"

"Lydia," Derek realizes.

"You're not as painfully slow as you look," Peter says approvingly.

"And the energy source?" Derek says, nearly managing to ignore the jab.

"Kate Argent," Peter says.

"But you haunted Lydia," Derek says. "You made her do things for you. Is Dad—"

"Those were… unfortunate complications," Peter says. "Kate was supposed to die. Somehow, she didn't. She wasn't completely dead, so I wasn't completely alive. That won't happen again."

"The energy source is murder," Derek realizes. "The Aztecs believed in human sacrifice. Is _that_—"

"Murder?" Peter scoffs. "You had Kate Argent destroyed. Was that murder?"

"She was killing people," Derek says uncomfortably. "She wouldn't have stopped."

"Exactly," Peter says softly. "You and I, Derek, we're survivors. We do what has to be done."

"So Dad," Derek says, sudden dread creeping in. "Who's going to die so he can come back?"

"The Benefactor, of course," Peter says.

* * *

Mr. Tate killed people, Derek thinks, walking aimlessly. He killed _kids_. And no one can do anything about it because they're all _animal attacks. _And if killing him will bring Dad back—

But he's Malia's father. Derek's already taken everything else from her. He can't take this too.

Unless he can prove Mr. Tate is still dangerous. If he still hates supernaturals, if he still wants them all dead, then killing him isn't selfish at all. It's survival.

_We do what has to be done_.

Derek should've waited to kill Kate. He should've—but he couldn't have seen this coming.

Could he?

* * *

The fact is, Mr. Tate killed a baby. He killed a baby in a little wolf hat, and he said she deserved it. He called Cora—

Derek stops walking.

All this time his head has been spinning. He's been thinking he's alone, trapped, forced to trust his sister's killer. He completely forgot his other sister. His living sister.

He digs through his pockets, comes up empty. Of course. His phone is probably at the McCall's, with whatever's left of his clothes from that night. It probably didn't even survive. _He_ almost didn't, and he's not a fragile slice of glass and plastic.

He should've memorized Cora's number. She programmed herself as his first contact, and he got lazy and didn't bother learning her number, and now—

She could be anywhere. She could be dead, or dying, and Derek would be more than useless, not even able to tell by the snap of pack bond because he _isn't_ pack. He isn't her pack and all he had was a stupid human _phone_ and he didn't _think_—

He has to find it. He has to find it, whatever's left of it, maybe there's a way. Maybe he can get it fixed, or get the brain of it put in a new shell, or—something.

There has to be something he can do.

* * *

The McCall house is silent when Derek gets to it. All those weeks of following Stiles like a lost puppy have one benefit, at least: Derek has inadvertently memorized Scott's schedule. In fact, he knows Melissa's shifts for the next three weeks, and he knows when Stiles' father will be coming and going too. The only unknown variable is Stiles. He has no reason to be at the McCall's when neither of them are home, but Stiles defies reason, and Derek knows he has a key.

But that's okay. That's okay. Derek can handle whatever the real Stiles has to throw at him, even if it shatters his stupid fantasy. He's not a kid anymore. He's not even really a teenager, though he keeps forgetting that. He can handle Stiles.

Probably.

Anyway, Stiles isn't gonna kill him, and if he does—

Then fine. Fine. Let him kill Derek, let Peter kill him, let the whole world go Douglas Adams style, whatever. What's so great about any of it anyway?

Sufficiently Kübler-Rossed, Derek scrapes a claw under the window latch until something gives.

It's Melissa's bedroom.

Derek feels a sudden sense of _wrong_ so sharp it's laughable. He's not hurting anyone. He's not even taking anything that isn't his. But it's Melissa's bedroom, and she's never been anything but nice.

_Like you'd know,_ some awful part of his mind laughs.

Derek grits his teeth, pushes her away, and clambers down from the windowsill without disturbing anything.

He tries to look for blood, for signs of himself, but once out of Melissa's room, he's overwhelmed by Stiles. He's everywhere, on everything. Derek's wolf is frantic, keeps turning him around, trying to find the place where the scent is strongest and settle there. Fighting it turns Derek into a dog chasing his own tail, and it's so stupid. Derek's so fucking stupid. Why couldn't he just tell Malia to _keep_ him? Then Peter could bring Dad back, and Stiles wouldn't even be on Derek's radar anymore.

_Lie, lie,_ Derek's the worst liar in the world. Maybe that's why he keeps missing it in everyone else. He's lie-impaired, so he keeps falling in love with sociopaths, and sooner or later one of them is going to kill him. There's no point being angry about it. Derek's anger burned out a long time ago. Maybe even longer than that.

He searches for longer than he can stand before stumbling out into open air, breathing and breathing and breathing.

Even Kate didn't make his head spin like this. She was never his anchor. But he and Stiles never even really _kissed_. Outside Derek's head, there wasn't anything but Derek's dumb move and Stiles stopping him, pulling away. It doesn't make any sense, except it still does, in some part of him. In some part of him, Stiles is still home, and pack, and the only right thing in the world.

Fucking _instinct_.

* * *

When Derek gets back, Peter is death-pale and sprawled in the doorway, clutching his heart as black blood streams between his fingers.


	19. Chapter 19

The whole world seems to slow down around Derek as he runs. He threads his fingers together, one palm on top of the other, and presses them over Peter's cold hand. His skin is slippery with blood, but the flow is still streaming steadily, so he could still be alive. He could still be alive, Derek just has to—

Peter lets out a wretched gasp, grabs a fistful of Derek's shirt, and pulls Derek's face nearer to his.

"Wolfsbane… bullet," he manages.

Derek's stomach twists. So Stiles' father wasn't just posturing.

"What do I do?" Derek asks.

"Find… another," Peter says. He's so pale he's practically translucent, veins ink-blue through his skin. "Before—" Peter says, but he shakes his head and lets Derek go.

"Another bullet?" Derek asks. He can't imagine why that would help, unless Peter just doesn't want to die alone.

"And… a lighter," Peter says, before turning slightly sideways and hacking up a new river of black blood. Derek's only seen black blood once before, and it's a dizzyingly inconvenient distraction, but somehow he gets back to his feet.

* * *

Alan Deaton has wolfsbane bullets. That's where Stiles' father said he got them. It's a better gamble than trying to track down the gun Stiles' father is probably still carrying, or searching the Stilinski house for any spare ammo he might have left behind. Derek's wolf would probably take the opportunity to curl up in Stiles' bed and never move again.

At least Scott doesn't have work today, so all Derek has to worry about is Deaton. And finding the right bullet, and getting back in time to—to do whatever the cure is before Peter dies again. It's becoming more and more obvious how hopeless Derek would be without him. He doesn't even know how to cure a wolfsbane bullet, if that's even what Peter's plan is supposed to do. Derek's stomach is clenching, already, at what the lighter might be for.

But he doesn't have time to panic. He crashes through the door of the clinic, skidding to a stop inches from Deaton, who says calmly, "The door was open, Derek."

Derek definitely doesn't have time for Deaton's Peter-brand habit of taking forever to say nothing you actually need to know, while refusing to leave out anything else. He goes for the direct approach.

"I need a wolfsbane bullet," he says. "The same kind you gave the sheriff."

Deaton seems unfazed by the request.

"Maybe you didn't hear me," Derek says, low. "I need that bullet. And you're gonna give it to me." _We can do this the easy way or the hard way_ is almost definitely too hackneyed to be taken seriously, but Derek's running out of time.

"You can help me," Derek says, as threateningly as he can manage, "or you can watch me tear your throat out." His wolf stirs in his chest. Derek allows his mouth a corner of a grin. "With my teeth," he adds. It's a pretty good threat, considering Derek isn't an expert or anything. It sounds like something a bad guy would say in a movie before everyone did whatever he wanted.

Deaton just smiles serenely.

Derek glares back. He can't help but feel like Deaton is laughing at him, and it's hard being intimidating when the human who's supposed to be scared of you is practically mussing your hair and calling you _Der-bear_ or something. Derek grits his teeth, stops wasting time talking. His fangs grow in his mouth, his claws inch out over his nails, and he leaps.

He's just going to shake Deaton up. He isn't actually going to _hurt_ him. But he can't help hearing Mr. Tate's voice in his head, and it slows him just before his claws hit a nerve-jarring wall of nothing.

"Mountain ash," Deaton says from behind the barrier. "Now, if you'd like to explain, maybe I can help you."

"The sheriff shot Peter," Derek bites out resentfully, "with the bullet you gave him. I need another so the last relative I can actually find without a map and guide or a really good psychic doesn't die. Again."

"Ah," Deaton says. "So your uncle isn't hurting you?"

Derek glowers. "_I'm_ about to hurt you if you don't—"

Deaton shrugs amiably.

"Just—" Derek says tightly. He exhales hard through his nose. "What do you need me to say?"

"What is your uncle planning?" Deaton asks.

"Human sacrifice," Derek says flatly.

Deaton watches him for a few moments before he smiles slightly, nods. "Let me find that bullet for you."

"And a lighter," Derek says.

* * *

Peter somehow manages to look even worse when Derek gets back. His eyes are open, which only means he looks like he died with his eyes half-lidded, which is exactly what Derek would expect of him.

"I got it," he says, heart clanging loudly in his ears. Peter's eyes flicker. "What do you need me to do?"

"Open the bullet," Peter says. His voice has a horrible wet rattle in it. "_Carefully_."

"And?" Derek says, when he's done this.

"You see the wolfsbane inside?" Peter asks.

Derek more than sees it. His nose itches. "Yes."

"Set it on fire," Peter says, before his voice devolves into hacking and black blood fountains from his mouth again.

"What?" Derek says, barely keeping his hands from shaking and scattering poison all over him.

"_Set it on fire_," Peter says hoarsely, wiping his mouth. His eyes are watering. It's the closest he's ever looked to a real person.

"The—the bullet?" Derek says weakly. It'll explode, won't it? The fumes will probably kill both of them. Maybe Peter just wants Derek to kill both of them.

Peter sighs, spits blood into the black pool around him. "I need—the ashes," he manages.

Derek's hand shakes around the lighter. The smell is unbearable even before his faltering fingers get a flame. Derek can see his pack, hear them, feel the blistering heat around them. His eyes sting, vision a blur.

"Give it to me," Peter says, holding out a surprisingly steady palm. Derek's hands are trembling so bad he practically sets himself on fire. He can barely see three feet in front of him through the tears, but somehow he hands it over, and Peter does what Derek couldn't. He presses the smoking stuff against the wound under his palm and closes his eyes.

* * *

"Some people will do anything for their pack," Peter says. Derek's slumped on the blood-sticky stairs, watching him continue and continue and continue to be alive. That _cure_ or whatever it was didn't make any sense, but the wound is already gone, leaving no trace but the blood all around them and the faint but still horrifying scent of smoke hanging in the air.

"I'm sorry," Derek says, his throat constricting and constricting and constricting. His eyes go hot, spill over again.

"Some alphas tie their betas' pain to themselves so they can tell when their pack is hurt," Peter goes on, like Derek hasn't said a word. "Others simply tie their family's life force together. Think of a cup, filled to the brim with the strength of the pack. If the alpha dies, instead of their share of life force returning to the world at large, it stays in the family's cup, so that their absence doesn't leave their pack vulnerable."

He pauses, probably for effect, before adding, "Your mother did both."

Derek's throat is impossibly hot and tight, but he nods, accepts this, before his mind floods with what must have happened to Mom during that fire. He barely keeps the sudden sickness down.

"But this arrangement didn't die with my sister," Peter says. "In fact, it's probably the only real reason any Hale is still alive."

Derek swipes at his eyes, stares at Peter.

"My abuse two nights ago should have killed you," Peter says. "But I knew it wouldn't. Just as I knew that bullet wouldn't kill me."

Derek can't help the outrage that pours through him then. He'd really thought—he'd been half sure, ever since finding Peter in the doorway, that it was already over. That he was gonna be the only one left, again.

"Yet as invaluable as your mother's power has undoubtedly been through the years, it can only stream in one direction," Peter says. "Had only Talia survived, the bond wouldn't have helped her, because she'd never dream of taking power from her betas."

Of course Mom wouldn't. Derek feels a sudden wave of longing so heavy it nearly drowns him.

"It was your father's death that inspired my sister to do this," Peter goes on. "The thought of finding another member of her pack like that terrified her. The bond was a way for her to honor his memory at that most difficult time, while quelling the fear that something like that could happen again.

"And without it," Peter adds, after a few moments' silence, "I couldn't have come back."

Derek can barely hear him, buried under nostalgia so thick he could choke on it. He can feel Mom, suddenly, all around him, and it's almost impossible to notice anything else when all he wants to do is curl smaller, smaller, smaller, until he's engulfed completely.

"To bring our family back without the benefit of mass sacrifice, the bond must go full circle," Peter says, his voice growing stronger as Mom slips away. "I don't want to kill to bring my sister back. But I need your help with the alternative."

Anything, anything. Derek almost wants to change his decision, bring Mom back first, but the thought of having Dad here to welcome her is too strong. It would fix everything, make up for everything if Derek could do that.

Heart in his throat, already impatient with the lack of them, Derek says, "Tell me what to do."

* * *

Derek almost expects to dream of family, of his parents, Dad's death and the fire and their resurrection, but instead he dreams of Kate. Kate all over Stiles, kissing Stiles, claiming him. Taking and taking and taking, and Stiles thinks she's Malia, so he's letting her. Letting her touch him, letting her make him hers, and Derek's trying to warn him but he cant speak, and Kate looks at Derek struggling and laughs and laughs and laughs—

And suddenly Derek is at Stiles' side, in Stiles' room, taking him back desperately, breathing him in, and there isn't a trace of Kate anywhere on him. There's just Derek, and under, Stiles' father, a little bit of Scott—

But Derek kisses him hard, smiles sharply when he pulls back and Stiles is wide-eyed and breathless, pulling Derek in close again.

"Wait," Stiles says, and everything stops at once. A thousand Kates laugh in the sudden silence. _You you you you you you think I wanted to touch him?_

Stiles' hand finds Derek's wrist. "You went back to him," he says quietly. "Last night. Did he—do something?"

Derek shakes his head impatiently.

"Did he threaten you?" Stiles asks, softer. "Or—us?"

_Us_.

It's a cold hard stone in the gut, the Us that is Stiles in Scott's pack. Derek shakes his head again.

"Because if he did—"

"He didn't," Derek snaps. "Not even after your father _shot_ him."

Except he couldn't have said that, because this is a dream. You can't speak in dreams. You keep trying, but the words get stuck in your throat.

"That's nightmares," Stiles says, his eyes very bright. "And he hurt you again, I couldn't just—" He stops, says desperately, "He almost killed you, and then you came back hurt again, and you wouldn't say a word. I thought he _did_ something so you couldn't talk."

"He didn't hurt me again," Derek says. It sounds weak, a ridiculous defense, but it's true. "And he didn't _attack_ me, it was a fight. I started it. I lost." It's so _obvious_. Peter knew he'd be okay, he was just trying to stop Derek hitting him. Maybe the alpha power went to his head a little, but he knew Derek would be fine. Why can't anyone else understand that? "You're just looking for an excuse to—to put us down."

Stiles goes very still. "Is that what he's telling you?"

"He doesn't need to tell me," Derek says.

"Right," Stiles says. "Because it's so fucking _obvious_, right? Because I'm obviously seconds away from, from—" He shakes his head. "Hit me."

"What?" Derek says, stepping back cautiously.

"Hit me," Stiles says. "Attack me. Start a fucking fight. Whatever you did to him."

Derek doesn't move.

"Come on!" Stiles snaps impatiently. "You hate me, right? Because Scott didn't tell you his master plan, which_ he didn't tell me either by the way_, and I didn't drag him off you because I was freakin' paralyzed, I didn't even _think_, and because I didn't know you _weren't_ a serial killer until Peter put his claws through your spine, I mean I _knew_, like a gut feeling, but I didn't actually_ know_, it was just an instinct, and older you looks like someone you don't want to meet in a dark alley, and you could have just _told Scott_ you didn't bite him instead of assuming he'd see it like the privilege it obviously was for you and, and taking credit through _vague bullshit non-answers_, but _whatever_—and oh yeah, _I_ harbored your wanted ass while Danny tracked Peter down to the hospital, where you realized _surprise_, the alpha that's been murdering people, that literally left you for dead, looking _permanently_ _dead_ by the way, is your very own sweet supposed to be comatose _uncle_." Stiles takes a deep breath, keeps going. "But I'm the worst, right? And Peter's obviously not up to anything that's gonna blow up in all of our faces, he's got a heart of gold-plated marshmallow, he's just really _misunderstood_."

Derek can't listen to this, can't take in a word Stiles is saying. It's just a dream, just a stupid dream trying to confuse him. His wolf, or his new paranoia, or—He's gonna bring his family back. He's gonna bring his family back, and none of this _matters_.

"But you know what?" Stiles goes on, like he's been preparing for this all day and isn't gonna run out of material for hours. "You did turn kids without warning them, and you did turn Erica in a freaking hospital room after she'd just had a seizure, and you did caress her thigh or something that made her think you wanted to fuck her, and you know what? That was _fucked up_, and Scott was right to worry about it. But you know what else? _You didn't kill her_. You did your best to protect her, and all your betas. When, when Cora and Boyd were feral, you let them tear you to shreds so they wouldn't kill each other. You didn't know what you were doing half the time but you tried your fucking best and you did everything you could to stand in the way of anything trying to hurt them. You could've become a really good alpha," Stiles says, finally losing steam, "and the only reason you didn't get the chance is the alpha pack, okay?" His voice goes soft, sorry. "Go ask Peter who threw Boyd onto your claws. Or who held you in place until it was over. Or who kidnapped Erica and Boyd and Cora and locked them in a bank vault for months. And ask him who kept searching for them every day for _months_, who wouldn't give up on them—" Stiles stops. "But Peter wouldn't know the answer to that," he says, so quietly. "Not like I do. Because he wasn't there, looking with you, all summer."

It all sounds so horribly true, but it can't be. Not when Derek's so close to getting his father back. Peter's plan makes _sense_. It doesn't matter if he lied if he brings back Derek's family.

"I know you, Derek," Stiles says, stepping forward slowly. "Maybe you don't know me anymore, but I know you. And you—you _hate_ fighting. Even when you don't have a choice. You'd never hurt anyone, not really. Not enough that they'd need to defend themselves. Even when you killed Peter, he had to _convince_ you to do it, and you still closed your eyes." His hands slide up Derek's spine, find their perfect placement. Derek struggles not go limp underneath them. "There's no way what he did to you was self-defense, Derek," Stiles says, eyes pleading. "You have to know that."

Derek kisses Stiles quiet again, tries to shake off the feeling that he got it all wrong all over again. Stiles kisses back deep and certain, but after, he opens his eyes, says against Derek's skin, "You can't go back to him."

Derek jerks back. Means to jerk back. Ends up rooted in place, still breathing Stiles in, even as he says harshly, "I can do what I want."

But it doesn't come out harsh at all. It comes out like a plea, like he needs Stiles' permission.

"Right," Stiles says.

"Peter's gonna bring my father back," Derek tells him. He doesn't mean to. He just can't stand the closed-off look in Stiles' eyes, the momentary flash of betrayal before it.

"Sure he is," Stiles says. "He's a real bleeding heart that way."

"Stiles," Derek says. The way Stiles is looking, sounding, cold and distant and—It's unbearable. "I'm just trying to fix it."

"And you really think—"

"I'm doing this," Derek says. "I have to do this. I can't live like this, Stiles, I can't—"

"Sure," Stiles says. "Trust the guy who legitimately keeps trying to kill you, and accuse _me_—" He takes two sharp breaths, lets them out shakily. "I can't just keep waiting for you to show up like this," he says. "I'm—I'm spending the whole day expecting to stumble onto your _body_, I'm texting Lydia every five minutes in case she's getting a _feeling_, and then at night you just—show up, like nothing—" He shakes his head slightly. "I'm gonna lose my mind. Again."

"This is a dream," Derek says uncertainly. "The real you—"

"Just go," Stiles says, pushing him through the doorway. Derek can see him even as the door slams, sliding down it with a sob, burying his head in his hands. His heartbeat crashes like the tide, makes Derek sink against the door too, struggling to remember through the heartsick fog that none of this is actually happening. None of this is real. Any minute now he'll be back on Peter's porch, blinking up at too-bright sunlight, back in the solid, dependable day, where none of this actually _matters_, because the real Stiles doesn't care about Derek at all.

The softest little shudders filter through the door, settle in Derek like millstones, work a terrifying sick hollow all through him. Dread creeps cold under his spine, swallows him whole. Derek waits, and waits, and waits.

The world stays horribly still and sharp and solid. Stiles' misery tugs at Derek, drags the air out of him.

His wolf whimpers.

He keeps waiting.

He doesn't wake up.


	20. Chapter 20

Derek knows Peter can smell his betrayal on his skin, but he can't make himself care. He tries to be subtle when he watches him, examines everything through new suspicious eyes.

"Something wrong?" Peter asks lightly, and Derek startles, takes too long to catch his breath.

"We should find Cora," Derek says. "It's her pack too."

"Is it?" Peter challenges. "She's not your pack. She said so herself. She only ever came back for Braeden." On any other face, that twist of lips would be a smile. "Ahh, young love."

Cora did say she wasn't pack, but—Derek's eyes narrow.

"You weren't there when Cora said that," Derek says. "You weren't even in town." The world is starting to tilt again. "_Were_ you?"

"I keep track of my family," Peter says.

That's not an answer.

"Were you here all this time?" Derek presses. "Did you see me with_ Kate_?"

"Now, Derek…" Peter starts. Derek's throat goes so full of sharp things he can barely speak.

"Why didn't you _warn_ me about her?"

"You were bloodthirsty," Peter reminds him. "You would have killed me for her. I had to adopt a more… delicate approach."

"She could have killed me," Derek says, trying not to tremble. "And you were just _waiting_?"

"I knew she wouldn't hurt you," Peter says. Derek chokes on a dry sob. "She had plans with you. Killing you wouldn't make sense."

"You have plans with me," Derek says, "and you could've killed me."

Peter sighs. "You know I knew you would survive that."

"Laura didn't," Derek says darkly.

"Her chances for survival dwindled significantly after Kate Argent stole her unconscious body and cut it in half," Peter says smoothly.

Derek stares at him.

"It was tragic coincidence that I turned Scott McCall," Peter says. "I was weak, half-mad with pain and sickness, when I found two humans stumbling over Laura's ravaged body. I only meant to avenge my family. I attacked… But the newly-crowned alpha wolf had other ideas.

"As soon as I'd realized what I'd done, I ran," Peter says. "I knew the hold the alpha wolf had over me. I tried to keep away from the boy. But the wolf was too strong, and I was still healing. I was powerless against it. And as my unwilling beta rebelled, he became an enemy to both of us."

His eyes are faraway, just a little lost. His voice has faded off into nothing.

It's a great story, but it doesn't change anything.

"You should've told me about Kate," Derek says stubbornly.

"Would you have believed me?" Peter challenges. "Would you even have believed your precious _Stiles_? Or would his condemnation of your _true love_ have only brought the two of you even closer as you shut out the rest of the world."

"I believed you about Scott," Derek says uncertainly, because Peter's right, and Derek _hates_ it.

"I only confirmed what you already suspected," Peter says. "Had I started with Stiles, you'd be deaf by the first word. I know you, Derek. The things that drive you… instinct, love, trust… are so easily corrupted. You've always been… sensitive, and after your father, and Paige… You think the whole world is made up of people with shoulders for you to cry on. You never bother to ask what they want."

"Maybe you're right," Derek says, after a long moment of consideration. "Maybe I do need to ask."

"You're already learning," Peter says, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"So tell me," Derek says, raising his eyebrows. "What do you want?"

Peter holds out his hands. His palms are cracked and blistered. Derek's eyes water just looking at them.

"We bury the bodies of our loved ones under knots of wolfsbane," Peter says softly, "so they cannot be disturbed by warring packs without incurring… significant injury."

Derek stares at him for a few seconds, uncomprehending, before his meaning clicks into place.

"You found my father," Derek says. His voice is very thick. "You should've told me you were doing that. I would've—"

"You weren't here," Peter says simply.

"So—so you dug him up?" Derek says. "Where is he?"

"Healing," Peter says quietly.

"Healing," Derek repeats. "He's—Dad's _alive_?"

"Slowly but surely," Peter says, a smile curling the corner of his mouth.

"Show me," Derek says, but he's already searching, senses flickering frantically in effort to examine every direction once. "Show me my dad. Take me to him."

His mind is racing. Dad's alive. Dad's _alive_.

And Peter's gonna take Derek to him, Derek is gonna _see_ his dad _breathing_—

There are other thoughts, questions, but Derek can't make them matter, it's been seven _years_—or it's been more, Derek keeps forgetting he isn't a teenager anymore, but who _cares_?

"How does he look?" Derek presses as he follows Peter step for step. "You said he's—What's he healing?"

"Decay," Peter says. "Over time, a body—"

"I know," Derek says hurriedly. He doesn't want to think about it, to think about Dad like that. "But—the cancer—"

"Cancer," Peter repeats slowly. "Oh, Derek. You didn't really believe that… Did you?"

Derek's stomach goes tight. "It was cancer," he says shortly. "We heal, it's a gift but it can be—it can be a curse when, when your body doesn't know—"

Peter's eyes are so full of snake sympathy, Derek feels sick to look at him.

"So what was it," he bites out. "Why would, why would Mom _lie_—"

"It was suicide," Peter says, light as a murmur.

Derek jerks back.

"No it wasn't," he snaps. "Dad would never—Shut _up_!"

Peter makes an infuriating art out of persuasive silence.

"Why," Derek snarls, eventually. It doesn't come out nearly harsh enough. Little shudders keep getting in the way. "We—we were happy, then. Weren't we?"

"Who can know what struggles motivate a disturbed mind?" Peter starts, but Derek can't—can't.

"He wasn't _disturbed_," Derek spits. "It was—it was gr-growing in him, just a few days, nobody had any way of kn-knowing, and then—"

"And it never occurred to you that that could have been a metaphor," Peter says kindly. "You were young. Talia knew you were sensitive—"

"_No__!_" Derek howls, and then Peter is all around him, holding him steady as he shakes and shakes and shakes.

It's impossible. It's _impossible_, it's—

It's _Dad_.

If there's one person Derek knew, one part of the world he could be _sure_ of, it was Dad.

But Derek doesn't know anything about anything, does he?

"But now," he says hoarsely, when he can, "now he's healing. He's alive. And I can talk to him, I can ask him w-why—"

"I wouldn't," Peter says. "It can be dangerously easy to slip back into that frame of mind."

"Back," Derek says, and then he's struggling in Peter's arms. "Take me to him. Take me to him _now._"

"I did advise bringing them all back," Peter reminds Derek. "Talia knew how to deal with his… moods."

"Shut up," Derek begs, squeezing his eyes shut and wrenching away. "Shut up, shut up, just tell me where to go."

* * *

Peter leads him to the morgue. It's stupidly easy to slip past the shoddy security and into a freezer full of dead things, where Peter pulls out a drawer.

The body is nothing like Derek remembers him, its face waxy and contorted, sunken. Its paler than pale, and ice cold. It doesn't look—or feel—alive at all.

Derek inhales sharply and regrets it as the smell of rot and death hits him hard, makes his head spin. He sways slightly.

"Give him time," Peter says, clamping his hand down on Derek's shoulder. "His very organs are rebuilding from dust. His skin already looks healthier than it was just a few hours ago."

"Healthier," Derek says. Dad looks dead. He looks worse than dead.

"For one thing, it exists," Peter says, and Derek has to run past him and be sick in a broom closet.

* * *

"It's been fourteen years," Peter says, placing his hand lightly on the back of Derek's neck as he heaves into a white bucket he'd barely thought to remove the mop from before he couldn't think at all. "Give him time."

"I just—" Derek tries, and is sick again.

Did he ever figure it out, in fourteen years? Did older Derek ever think back, or, or put it together?

Did Laura_ tell _him?

No, Derek realizes, all too suddenly. Cora did.

_Laura knew shit at eleven no was ever gonna tell you._

Did _everyone_ else know? Was Derek the only _sensitive_ one, the only one too_ stupid_—

He shudders, chokes on nothing, tears streaming down his face. Peter's fingers slip into his hair.

"This process will take hours," Peter murmurs. "Maybe days. You don't have to stay here and watch."

"I can't _leave_ him," Derek says, his voice ragged. His throat is sour sandpaper, and his head is on fire. "What if—"

"You'll know when he's awake," Peter says. "The pack pull will come alive again, like it was never broken."

Derek can't stop shivering.

"He wouldn't want you to see him like this," Peter says, and Derek knows he's right. Dad never admitted when he was hurt, or sick, he was always fine, or okay. He was strong, he could handle it himself, he didn't want to—

Derek closes his eyes.

He didn't want to worry anyone.

So he just didn't say anything, so Derek just thought he really was fine, and okay, and even better than that, Derek just _believed_ him. And then he—

Derek knows, distantly, that things like this run in the family. But Dad wasn't like—Dad was never anything like that. Derek never would've imagined that Dad could be laughing at Mom's jokes, and ruffling his hair, and hiding _that_.

Even Derek, it was only one time, and it wasn't even really—He's alive, he's not actually gonna—He couldn't have stopped Peter anyway. It wasn't actually anything. It's not like he, like he _planned_ it—

Did Dad _plan _it?

Derek shakes so hard his knees knock together.

A wretched howl comes out of nowhere, spears all through him. He goes still.

"_Malia_," Derek says, and swipes at his eyes.

"Go to her," Peter says. "I'll keep an eye on your father."

"Both eyes," Derek says, and stumbles into a run.

* * *

The smell of smoke hits Derek almost instantly. He fights every stupid instinct he has and runs toward it.

If Malia's hurt, if he loses her too—

He never really considered Malia his to lose before, but of course she is. The closest she came to being Scott's pack was when Derek added her, and the real Malia always felt like family. A distant cousin, maybe, someone Derek never met but can't help _knowing_.

Derek's not gonna lose any more family.

He's nearly breathless when he finds her, his wolf already snarling, looking for someone to fight.

But it's just Malia, trying to put out a barely-smoking bonfire with—

With Dad's jacket.

"What are you—" Derek starts, scandalized, but then he sees what he's really looking at, and his chest tightens so bad the world goes white.

It's Malia's father.

What's left of him, anyway.

* * *

As soon as the horrified paralysis wears off, Derek jerks into action, smothering the smoke with his own hands, ignoring the blisters that form and heal just as quickly. Malia tries to shove him away, say, "I can—" but she stops, shudders at Derek's new burns, and wraps her arms around him, dragging him out of reach and keeping him there with a trembling but firm hold.

"I know," she says hollowly, ages later, her heart pounding against Derek's side. "I know he k-killed people. I know Lydia found bodies. Like _multiple_—" Her jaw goes tight, defiant. "But he's still my dad."

It's not until the burning is abruptly gone that Derek realizes she's pulling his pain away.

"I guess it runs in the family, huh," Malia says bitterly. "The killer gene."

Derek stares down at his hands.

Malia catches them, hides them from him. "_Stop_ it," she says sharply. "I heard Stiles. That wasn't the same at all." Now she's just hugging him, only the thinnest inky black lines still bleeding up her arms. Derek hasn't let anyone do this for him in years. More, probably. Not since Dad.

"You feel like family," Malia says. "Like blood. So does Cora."

So she feels it too.

Most packs are matrilineal, but Malia wasn't raised in a pack. Her father didn't even know the supernatural _existed. _Did Malia's mother just never tell him? Never tell him she was a Hale?

"Yeah," Derek says, instead of any of that, and lets the family tie wash over him, make the world manageable again, even with the smell of smoke so close, the scent of burning—of burnt—

He tries not to breathe in at all.

"You are family," Malia says. "It's obvious. Like I just know."

"Instinct," Derek says without thinking, and immediately wants to kick himself, claw himself open. But Malia just says, "Yeah."

The smoke keeps rising and rising, twisting Derek's stomach into knots, but the ease of family almost settles it again.

"He really misses you, y'know," Malia says quietly. "It's like all he can think about."

"Sorry," Derek says, guilt swelling in him again, but Malia shakes her head impatiently.

"He's worried about you," she says. "They all are."

_Peter's bringing my family back_, Derek almost wants to tell her. _Our family_.

But he can't. Not by her father's body, not while it's still _sizzling_.

Not knowing who did it, and why.

"How long have you been out here?" he asks softly.

"I just felt this pull," Malia says. "Like panic. And then I was here. I don't know. I'm still not good with time," she admits, her arms falling to his sides. "I can't get the hang of it. I've never needed to know it before. Not like humans do."

Derek was trapped under his wolf for a few hours. Maybe less. How Malia kept her humanity for eight years—how she can still talk, still move like she's the right shape without the coyote convincing her otherwise—It's incredible.

"You're doing amazing," he tells her. "With everything. And after what Kate did to you—"

Malia tenses for just a second.

Derek shuts up.

"Stop it," Malia snaps. "Stop beating yourself up for everything. I survived eight years as a coyote in the woods. I survived being kidnapped and having my claws pulled out with tweezers. I can handle _talking_."

"Okay," Derek says.

"Good," Malia says. "What did she even _want_ with you? It never made any sense. If she was just some hunter looking for a target. Why _you_? It's like a dog catcher going after one of the puppies in the Sarah McLachlan commercial."

"Dog catcher," Derek repeats, still wincing at the thought of what Kate did to Malia, his claws practically retracting into his knuckles.

"From like _Benji_."

Derek looks at her blankly.

"It's this kids movie," Malia says. She's barely looking at the body at all anymore. Derek steps out of the circle of her arms, gravitates to her side, the faintest shadow of fire hissing back into his palms. "There's this dog named Benji, and he has a family, and then this evil dog catcher tries to ruin it." She frowns. "Maybe I'm remembering it wrong."

"How do you remember anything?" Derek asks. "I've never heard of anyone picking humanity up this fast."

"You know a lot of formerly feral people?" Malia challenges, raising an eyebrow. Derek ducks his head.

"I mean, from what I've read," he says sheepishly.

"Maybe I'm just that awesome," Malia says, after some consideration.

"That explains it," Derek says.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Malia asks. "What do people do when—when—"

"When they find this?" Derek asks. "I don't know. I can't actually remember the fire, or anything after it, so—"

"So I'm not doing it wrong?" Malia asks nervously. "Like crying too much, because I know what he did, or not crying _enough_, because what's wrong with me, he's my _dad_, or—"

"I don't think there's a wrong way to do it," Derek says. It's not like he's some kind of expert at taking this well, or making the right decisions. Malia's doing fine. "I mean, you don't want to fake cry or anything, that would be stupid. Just feel whatever you're feeling." Even now Derek wants to take everything he says back as soon as he says it. He sounds like such a tool. As if he knows anything about anything.

But she nods, says, "Good," brimming over with relief, so it couldn't have sounded that dumb. "And if I feel kind of sick, but also don't want to just leave him, and kind of like I can't talk to anyone right now, but I don't want you to leave, is that—"

"That's fine," Derek says, and bumps her shoulder with his, just a little. "I'm not going anywhere."


End file.
